Here
by kaylabeth
Summary: Everything is different now, after the war. But it's over, and slowly,things will be okay. At least, that's what Ginny hopes for. As she heads back for her final year at Hogwarts, she's positive that things are going to be better. Until it's all complicated by one teeny, tiny, huge, little thing...
1. Prologue

**A/N:** It's been years since I've written HP fic, but I recently reread the series for the first time in a long time and... here I am again. This story has an M rating. That is a strong M rating. There will be explicit things. This part is just a prologue, so it is pretty short. This story itself won't be very long. Around ten chapters at most (but maybe closer to five.) I haven't written anything in ages and would love any sort of feedback because I know I'm rusty and could certainly use some constructive criticism.

 **PROLOGUE**

Everything had been leading up to this. At least, that was how it seemed. Every moment in the past few days, the past few weeks, the past few months, the past few years... . All of it, every moment, was leading up to this. And now that it was finally happening, it was like all of the events on the way were just minor roadblocks. Nothing more. Just small inconveniences.

That wasn't true, of course. It couldn't be further from the truth. But at that moment, with Ginny wrapped tightly in Harry's arms, kissing him for the first time since before...since before it had all happened, it was almost like everything in between didn't matter anymore. Blissful oblivion. It would all come back soon. She knew that. The minute they broke apart and went back inside to The Burrow, it would all become real again. But for now, she didn't mind the distraction. She welcomed it.

"You have no idea," Harry mumbled, his mouth still so close to Ginny's, "how long I've been wanting to do that."

"Actually, you know, I think I have a pretty good idea," she smiled, closing the gap between them once more.

It hadn't been easy, getting to this point. They had been apart for months, and then the battle, and then…. the grief, the mourning, the funerals, the figuring-out-how-to-live-now-that-everything-was-different. It was a lot. At times, it was too much. But they were managing. They were all managing.

And now. Now. Three months since they had first seen each other after being apart. Fifteen weeks. One hundred and five days. And finally, _finally_ , here they were. Intertwined, the late summer sun setting behind them, a good distance away from The Burrow, secluded behind the trunk of the largest tree. It had started out as an innocent walk - just like the many others they'd had in the past fifteen weeks. Sometimes their walks were full of conversation - light and heavy - and other times they were completely silent, but that was okay. Sometimes their hands would brush against each other. Sometimes one of them would grab hold. Today, they had walked, their usual route - and Ginny wondered briefly when it became their usual route - and their hands brushed and Harry held on and they were silent until they reached the tree and Ginny stopped and she looked at him and he was already looking at her and Ginny certainly wasn't imagining that look in Harry's eyes - the one she'd seen plenty of that spring that they were together. And then he asked her:

"Can I kiss you?"

"Yes," she answered without hesitation.

And he kissed her. And kissed her. And kissed her.

And it didn't matter that there had been a war and that her family had been in the thick of it and that she had lost a brother and that her mother was still eerily silent most days and that her other brother was struggling _hard_ and that she still had nightmares and was too afraid to sleep most nights and that everything was different and nothing would ever be the same. It didn't matter because she was in Harry's arms. He was here and she was the closest she had felt to safe in ages.

"Thank you," she said when they broke apart, their foreheads still pressed together.

"For what?" he asked, sounding confused.

"For being here."

Here. With her. For her.

Here. In that moment.

Here.

Alive.


	2. Chapter 1

A/N: Wow! I didn't think that prologue would get any attention at all! But it did! And it made me very happy! That being said, I feel like I should mention that usually, in the past when I used to do a lot more writing, I would usually have a significant portion of a story written before I began posting. This is not the case with this story. It's been so long since I've written, that as soon as I wrote something, I wanted to post it! And knowing that people might be reading things that I'm writing gives me some sort of motivation to keep writing! So basically, what I'm saying is that updates won't be a regular thing. But I have a lot of ideas and I pretty much know exactly where this story is going, so it won't be a matter of not knowing what to write that will prevent me from updating, but more of an issue of time! I'm a busy lady, but I'm going to do my best!

As you will see from this chapter, unlike the prologue, the chapters will be of pretty decent length. Also, that explicit stuff that I mentioned in the prologue author's note? Yeah, that starts like... right away. Just diving right into it. Okay, that's all! Feedback is much appreciated!

 **CHAPTER 1.**

Hermione caught Ginny's eye from across the dinner table. Ever since she and Ron had returned from Australia, Hermione was only at the Burrow every now and then. She was spending a lot of time with her parents after having been away from them for so long. But it was a Saturday evening and Hermione sat close to Ron as they finished eating.

Ginny cocked her head, communicating nonverbally with Hermione. Hermione raised her eyebrows and glanced quickly at Harry and then back to Ginny. Ginny shrugged, trying not to give too much away all at once, but her smile betrayed her. It crept up on her and she had no control. She looked away quickly, but she still saw the grin spread over Hermione's face.

"So?" Hermione asked, once they were alone, volunteering to clean up after dinner, and shooing Harry and Ron away when they tried to help, much to their confusion.

"So," Ginny repeated.

"You two are back together, aren't you?"

"No," she shook her head. "I mean, not… really. I don't think. We kissed. Today. That's it."

"But that's something!" she exclaimed. Ginny looked at her and the way she was smiling. There was still so much that Ginny didn't know about where Hermione, Ron, and Harry had been when they were gone. They had each told her tiny bits and pieces. She didn't push them. She didn't want them to have to tell her anything if they weren't ready. But she had let them know that she was willing to listen. Ginny didn't know exactly what had happened to Hermione to cause the visible scars that had never been there before or why, shortly after the war, she would wake up in the middle of the night to hear Hermione softly sobbing. All she knew was that she had been through a lot. And so to see her smile like that, to know that a person could go through so much and still be so excited by the prospect of two of her friends dating made Ginny swell with affection towards her.

"It is something," she agreed with a nod. "I'm not rushing anything, though. I don't want to. I like that we've been taking our time… It wouldn't be right to just jump into things… not after everything that's happened."

"But," Hermione frowned, pausing for a moment to push some of her dark curls out of her face. "I think you two are really good for each other. He could be your Ron."

"I understand what you intended with that sentence, but perhaps I should remind you that I already have a Ron and he happens to be my brother," she said, a laugh playing at her lips, and Hermione grimaced.

"Ew. Oh gosh. No, that's not what I…."

"I know what you meant. And I'm so glad that you and my brother are together and that that's helped both of you...cope. But. I don't know. Harry and I… we still need more time."

"We go back to school soon," Hermione reminded her.

"I know," she nodded, the thought constantly present in her mind. The damage to Hogwarts was being repaired soon enough to have only a two-week delay in reopening.

"They're not coming with us."

"I know that, too."

"Don't you want…?" Hermione trailed off, but Ginny knew where she was headed.

"Of course I do. But I also want it to be perfect. I'm willing to wait for that."

 **...**

Ginny's back was pressed up against a tree. Harry was pressed up against her. One of his hands was on her cheek, the other was on her hip, fingers tracing patterns against the small bit of skin exposed by her t-shirt that had ridden up. Her arms were around him, holding him tight. And neither of them had barely even come up for air.

It was as if a desperation had consumed them and they needed each other, needed to be kissing, to be touching, to be as close as they possibly could. It was probably stupid, Ginny thought, to be doing this so close to the Burrow. Others were home. But she didn't care. She needed Harry even closer. Even though their bodies were pushed together, she wanted more. She pulled his shirt upwards, just a little bit, just to reveal some skin, and their bare midriffs touched, and she still wanted more. But she couldn't have it. She knew she couldn't. Not here, not now.

But Harry's hand trailed upwards. The one on her hip moved up, beneath the fabric of her shirt, pulling her slightly away from the tree just so he could settle on the small of her back. And then his mouth moved, away from her lips, to her neck, to her collarbones, and his hands moved again, too. Down this time. Down to her butt, grabbing it, and she let out a long, low breath, her own hands moving to Harry's head, tangling her fingers in his hair.

"Harry," she mumbled, and then he pulled away from her, looking her in the eyes.

"Is this okay?" he asked. "I'll stop."

"I don't want you to stop. But we're not entirely alone."

"I know. You're right," he said, glancing in the direction of the house. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry," she said, shaking her head, her fingers clasped together behind his neck, still holding him close to her. She pulled him back to her, pressing their lips together once again, the intense fervor and desperation of the kissing dissipating some, but she knew that it would return in an instant if they allowed it to.

Only two days had passed since they had first kissed behind the trunk of the largest tree just outside the Burrow. They hadn't discussed it. They didn't talk about it at all. But they went on another walk, reached the same tree again, and before she knew it, Ginny was pressed up against that tree.

When they first started dating, back during that spring at Hogwarts, everything was new and delicate. Every touch had been tentative. They were exploring and discovering each other. But now, they already knew each other. Harry already knew that the spot on Ginny's neck, right beneath her jaw, was the spot to make her draw in her breath sharply, to make her lean her head back further, allowing him full roam. And Ginny already knew that when she pulled Harry's bottom lip between her teeth, his hands would tighten on her, wherever they were. Kissing again, even after more than a year of not touching at all, was just like picking up where they left off. It wasn't like it was before. Not at all. They were just diving right back in to it. It almost seemed as if they were attempting to make up for lost time.

The sound of someone apparating a short distance away drew Harry and Ginny apart from each other instantly, withdrawing their hands, each adjusting their clothing that had become mussed up, looking in the direction of the sound. Ginny's dad was returning from work.

"Er," Harry mumbled, relaxing slightly once it became clear that Arthur didn't notice them. "Maybe we should go back in?"

"Yeah," she agreed. "Yeah, probably."

And so they walked, hand in hand, back towards the Burrow and inside. Their walks together had become so frequent that nobody no longer asked them where they had been. The fact that they were both gone together and then reappeared together didn't come as a surprise to anybody.

"Oh, Ginny, dear," Molly said, catching sight of her from where she was preparing dinner. "Your Hogwarts letter came this morning right after breakfast. It's still on the table."

"Oh! Thanks, Mum!" she said, spotting it and moving towards it. She had spent most of the day outside with Harry and Ron, and then just Harry… she hadn't even been in since breakfast. She sat down at the table and Harry took the seat next to her. As she opened her letter, a small metal badge fell out.

"Is that...?" Harry asked excitedly. She picked it up, a grin spreading over her face.

"It is!" she exclaimed, holding it out in front of her.

"Quidditch captain! Congratulations!" Harry said, smiling brightly at her, and in her excitement, she leaned towards him, and he leaned towards her, and it wasn't until their lips met that they seemed to remember that both Ginny's mother and father were in the room with them. They pulled apart quickly, awkwardly, and Ginny chanced a glance in her father's direction. He was pointedly staring in the opposite direction, the tips of his ears rather pink, but she thought she could see the smallest hint of a smile on his face. And when she looked towards her mother, she caught her eye only for a moment before she turned, humming a happy-sounding song as she went back to finishing dinner.

"Sorry," Harry whispered to her, his own face rather pink. She stifled a laugh.

"Did I hear that correctly?" Arthur asked, seeming to finally decide that he had been looking away long enough. "My daughter is Gryffindor's new quidditch captain?"

"Unless the badge was sent to me by mistake," she smiled, holding it up to let her father see. He beamed with pride.

"Congratulations, Ginny!" Molly said. "Make sure you leave your book list in the kitchen. I can take a trip to Diagon Alley later this week and pick up everything you need."

"I'll go with you, Mum. I'd like to see George…."

"Yes, well… Alright," she agreed with a quick nod.

Ginny was so overwhelmed with joy about becoming the new quidditch captain that she barely even looked at the actual letter she received or her list of required books. She was staring at the shiny metal and the way it gleamed in the sunlight that streamed through the windows when Harry nudged her, and she noticed that he was reading the letter.

"Did you see this? This part here at the bottom?" he asked, handing her back the letter. And she read the final paragraph of it:

 _Given the events that transpired at Hogwarts last year, as well as within our community, in addition to regular courses this year, Hogwarts will be offering weekly private counseling sessions for any student that wishes to attend. These sessions are not mandatory, but strongly recommended, especially for those who were subject to any harsh punishments last year, fought in the Battle, or lost any close family members or friends. If interested in setting up a weekly appointment time that will work with your course schedule, speak with your Head of House on the first day of term._

"That's a really good idea," Ginny said, folding the parchment and setting it back upon the envelope in which it arrived. "Especially for some of the first years last year that… were punished."

"What about you?"

"What about me? Do that? No. No, I don't need that," she said, shaking her head.

"It might be helpful," he shrugged, but Ginny didn't respond, and that seemed to be the end of the discussion. Harry didn't push it any further.

 **...**

Ginny couldn't sleep.

That wasn't anything new.

She'd been having a hard time sleeping for quite some time now. She could hardly remember the last time she was able to sleep well. Nightmares had become a regular part of her nights ever since her first year at Hogwarts. She had taught herself to just cope with them. She didn't want to be of any trouble… or any more trouble. But now, she had so much more material for nightmares that the insomnia was almost like her body's way of preventing them from happening.

It seemed to be even worse tonight. She was anticipating the next day. She was going to Diagon Alley with her mother to pick up her new school things, and then they were visiting George. She didn't see much of George these days. He didn't come around for dinner very often, and when he did, he looked disheveled, disoriented, and tired. It was clear that he was still having a hard time dealing with Fred's death. He had left the Burrow only a week after they had buried Fred, and since then, only visited periodically. She worried about him. They all did. She wanted to be able to help him, but she didn't know how. She had lost a brother, but he had lost his twin. She knew it was different. She knew that anything she might say to him wouldn't be of much use.

She shifted her position in her bed, trying to find a new comfortable spot. She closed her eyes, willing herself to just fall asleep.

Ron had suggested that she attend counseling when she returned to Hogwarts.

"Harsh punishments, fought in the battle, lost a family member… Ginny, you fall into all three of these categories," he'd said. "You should do it. She should, shouldn't she, Harry?"

"Oh, er. That's up to her," he'd replied.

She couldn't imagine it being helpful at all, though. And besides, who was doing the counseling? Would it be Madam Pomfrey? Or a professor? Or a complete stranger? She couldn't imagine talking about personal things with any one of those. And she thought that she had been handling things perfectly well. She wasn't having any breakdowns or doing anything other than being as strong as she possibly could for her family. She had the nightmares and the insomnia, but that was it. And talking about her problems wasn't likely to fix that.

She shifted again. And then again. The house was completely silent. She didn't know how long she'd been trying to sleep, but it felt like ages. She tried to think of things, happy things, to numb her brain and fall asleep. She replayed the last few walks around the garden with Harry in her mind. The way he kissed her… The feeling of his hand upon her cheek….

And then, just like that, she was back at Hogwarts, hearing Voldemort's declaration that Harry was dead, seeing the lifeless form in Hagrid's arms.

She sat up, her heart pounding, breathing quickly, looking around her room, reminding herself that she was at home, in her bedroom, alive, and that Harry was also alive, just in the other room, the room that used to be Percy's but was now functioning as Harry's until he decided to stay elsewhere.

Ginny slipped out from under her covers, walking soundlessly towards her bedroom door and opening it slowly. She crept out of her room, making her way on tip-toe towards Harry's room. She didn't knock. She just went inside.

Harry was snoring softly in the bed. His glasses were set upon the nightstand along with his wand and a book about quidditch. She knelt down beside the bed, looking at him, his mouth slightly agape, his chest rising and falling with steady breaths. Breathing, He was here. He was breathing. He was alive. She knew that he would be, but seeing it with her own eyes was reassuring. She placed a gentle hand upon his shoulder and he jumped, eyes flashing open, staring straight at her with a look of terror. But then it was gone. His features softened instantly.

"Ginny," he said softly. "You scared me."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I couldn't sleep."

"It's okay. C'mere," he mumbled, moving himself on the bed, giving Ginny a spot. And she complied, climbing into the bed with him, laying her head upon the pillow and looking at him.

"Bad dreams again?"

"Sort of. I couldn't actually fall asleep for ages. Then I finally did and… yeah."

"Do you want to tell me about it?" he asked, bringing a hand up to touch Ginny's face, pushing a few strands of hair out of her eyes. She shrugged.

"It's so quiet," was all she said. Harry seemed to understand, reaching across her to the nightstand and grabbing his wand.

" _Muffliato_."

He settled back down onto the pillow and Ginny stared at him, debating what she should say to him.

"You were dead," was what came out. "In my dream. Except it wasn't really a dream, it was just a sort of vision of what really happened. Because you were dead. I thought you were dead."

"I know. But I'm not. I'm here."

"I know you are," she said, touching him, placing a hand on his arm, gripping onto him, feeling him there with her. "Every time I have that dream, I have to remind myself, though. It's one of the only dreams I have where the person that I dream being dead… isn't actually dead."

"Ginny," he whispered, stroking her hair softly.

"I hate it. I hate having to revisit those memories in such detail. I could deal when it was just dreams about the Chamber, but… I just want to be able to sleep."

"Dreamless Sleep potion," he said. "Get some. I'm sure they have it somewhere in Diagon Alley. You're heading there tomorrow."

But Ginny shook her head. In order to get that, she would have to tell her mother that she couldn't sleep, and she didn't want to be any more trouble.

"Maybe they'll go away on their own eventually," she said.

"I wish there was something I could do."

"Just let me lay with you. That's all I need," she told him, snuggling closer to him. He kissed her. Softly, sweetly, just lips upon lips. She already felt herself relaxing, knowing that sleep wouldn't be far off.

"Can I ask you something?" she said softly.

"Hmm?"

"What are we? I mean, we've been snogging every day for the past few days now, but we haven't really talked about it or anything. I don't mind not defining it right away…. But I go back to Hogwarts soon, and you start auror training soon, and…," she trailed off. Harry was silent for a moment.

"I would like you to be my girlfriend again," he said, speaking slowly as if choosing his words carefully. "If that's what you want as well."

"I would like that, too," she smiled.

"Okay. Okay, good," Harry said. And then he kissed her again.

"I kept having this scenario pop up in my mind of you going to auror training and meeting some gorgeous auror woman with huge tits and you'd forget all about me."

"Huge tits, huh?" Harry laughed. "Tell me more about this imaginary woman you've created."

"Well, basically, she looks like me, except her hair is dark and always pulled back, and she hasn't got any freckles, and she's got huge tits."

"But if she looks like you, then how could I forget about you? Unless I'm only looking at her tits?"

"Well you would be, wouldn't you?"

"No, I don't think I would be."

" _Really_?" Ginny asked, not believing him.

"Really! I mean, yeah, I think tits are - okay, I have to stop saying _tits. Breasts_. I think _breasts_ are very interesting, but… I find myself more interested in other… _assets_ on a woman," he said, and with that, his hand slid down to grab Ginny's butt. She stifled a giggle into his shoulder.

"More specifically, _your_ assets," he whispered, close to her ear. She tilted her face towards his and they were kissing again, lips and tongues and teeth, hands roaming, touching, feeling. Harry's hand on Ginny's butt moved down her thigh, to behind her knee, pulling so that her leg was thrown over his hips. And then he rolled both of them and Ginny was on her back with Harry above her, between her legs, and they had kissed so many times, they had gotten very heated, but never like this, never in a bed with only thin layers of summertime pajamas covering their skin. Ginny's nightdress had bunched up somewhere near her hips and she could feel Harry against her bare legs as she wrapped them around him, holding him there, pushing him closer to her. His mouth trailed from her lips, to her jaw, to her neck. And then he glanced up at her.

"Is this okay?" he asked. She nodded. "You're sure?"

"Yes," she nodded again.

"You would tell me to stop if I ever do anything you don't want, right?"

"Yes," she said, even though she couldn't think of anything that he could do that she wouldn't want. But with that, he was kissing her again and she was kissing back and she reveled in the way his body felt on top of hers and when he rolled his hips down slightly, she pushed hers up, and she could feel his arousal, and it just made her want him even more. And then she felt his hand moving from her hip, trailing downwards, and settling right between her legs. She let out a soft gasp, his fingers trailing over the thin cotton of her panties. She wanted him to touch her with nothing in between. He rolled himself off of her, his hand still between her legs, moving so that he was lying just beside her, still kissing her, legs intertwined. She rolled her hips, pushing herself against Harry's hand, wanting more.

"Harry," she finally said, breaking their kiss and looking up at him. "Touch me."

For a brief moment, he seemed to freeze. His mouth opened slightly, and he stared at her, squinting slightly due to his lack of glasses, and finally, he simply nodded. But his hand stayed still, seemingly unable to move. Understanding it as nervousness, Ginny couldn't help but smile, and she was sure that his heart was beating just as quickly as her own. Keeping her eyes on his, she reached down, placing her hand over his, and guided it beneath the elastic waistband of her panties. She watched his eyes widen, felt

his long, low breath on her face, and then she let out a soft whimper as he touched her, nothing in between, just his fingers on her.

"Where…?" he muttered, and she guided him, her eyelids fluttering closed.

"Right… right there."

"Like this?"

"Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Like that," she nodded, her breath quickening, and she removed her hand from his, letting him take over. She had always thought that if anybody ever touched her the way that Harry was touching her, that it would be weird or awkward, or that she would be uncomfortable. But it wasn't any of those things. She was with Harry and it was okay and he was a particularly fast learner, and her breathing was becoming more and more rapid by the second, her chest quickly rising and falling. Occasionally, Harry's fingers slipped away from where she wanted them, but he found his way back quickly, and she let out a breathy moan of approval. Even though she knew that nobody outside the bedroom would be able to hear her, thanks to the spell that Harry had casted, she was still apprehensive about making too much noise. She glanced up at his face to find him staring at her, and despite the fact that she felt perfectly comfortable with him, she could still feel a blush rising to her cheeks, and she let out a noise that was halfway between a giggle and a moan.

"You're staring at me," she mumbled, covering her face with one hand.

"I can't help it," he said, his fingers still moving against her. He leaned closer to her and he kissed her, and she gripped onto him, kissing back fiercely. It wasn't a perfect kiss. It was clear that Harry's focus was elsewhere, but Ginny didn't mind. When Harry's hand moved and suddenly he slipped a finger inside of Ginny, she let out a gasp, followed by a soft moan against his mouth, and she felt his lips turning up slightly into a smile. Her hips began to move, seemingly all on their own, without her permission, moving as Harry moved, and their kiss was broken, but she clung to him still.

"Harry…."

"Tell me what you want me to do. I'll do it."

"Move…. move your finger like, no, not like - yes. Yes. Yes, like that."

"Yeah?"

"Oh, don't stop."

He didn't. She panted, his movements eliciting ripples of pleasure throughout her body. He kissed her again, but didn't linger on her lips. His mouth trailed down to her jaw, her neck, her collarbones, and he pulled the top of her nightdress down as far as it would go, dropping kisses as he went.

"Ginny," he said, never ceasing his movement.

"Hm?" she asked, looking up at him through heavily-lidded eyes.

"I want to taste you."

All she could do was nod, her heart beating fast, her breath already unsteady.

"Yes?"

"Yes," she confirmed, and his fingers were no longer inside of her, and he moved in between her legs, hands coming to rest on both of her hips, touching the elastic of her underwear.

"May I take these off of you?" he asked. She nodded. She felt her underwear being pulled down and she lifted her hips, allowing him to remove them. She attempted to control her breathing as she stared up at the ceiling, but she barely had more than a brief moment before her eyelids fell closed and her mouth dropped open, letting out a soft " _oh_."

It was like nothing she had ever felt before. His tongue was soft, unlike the roughness of his fingertips, and it seemed to just glide over her. She sighed, feeling her entire body relaxing into the mattress, eyes closed, knees bent, Harry's head between her thighs. His hands were running along the outer sides of her thighs, her hips, up further still. He seemed to be exploring her, both with his hands and with his mouth. He pulled away, turning his head to leave slow, wet kisses along her inner thigh, and then the other. His movements were torturously slow as he made his way back to where he began. But then Ginny let out a breathy moan when his tongue reached her again.

She lost all sense of time. All she knew was Harry and his hands and his mouth on her, and it didn't matter to her if they stayed like that until the sun began to shine through the windows. She wouldn't mind if they stayed like that forever.

Her back arched slightly, his mouth focusing on just one spot, a perfect combination of suction and movement, and her fingers began to twist in the bedspread beneath her. She didn't even realize that she had been rocking her hips until one of Harry's hands grasped at her, holding her still. But staying still was so difficult with the things that he was doing to her, and she let out a moan, louder than all of the others that had escaped past her lips. With one of his hands resting just above her hip, holding her still, he brought the other around, and she felt his fingers sliding into her again.

The feelings were beginning to overwhelm her. Her back continued to arch off of the mattress, fingers clutching at whatever they could find, eyes squeezed shut, mouth agape as she panted and let out noises far more obscene than she ever thought she could possibly make. Her thighs began to tremble as heat spread throughout her body. She tried to move, but Harry held her down firmly.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck_ ," she whimpered, her toes curling, muscles tensing, and it was too much. It was too much. She almost wanted him to stop. She reached down towards his head, needing him to stop, needing to push him away, but just as her hand reached his hair, it all seemed to just stop on its own. Nothing had actually stopped. Harry was still doing everything that he had been doing before. And it still felt so good. But everything that had been building up was just… gone.

She let herself relax against the mattress again, running her fingers gently through Harry's messy hair. She touched his face, bringing him up from between her legs.

"Hey," she smiled at him when he looked at her. "Come up here."

He did, crawling beside her, helping her to pull her nightdress down over herself.

"Did you…?" he asked, not finishing the question, but Ginny understood where he was going. She shook her head.

"It's okay, though," she said.

"Are you sure? Because I can go back down there for a little longer," he offered and she laughed.

"Really. It's okay," she assured him. He stared down at her as if trying to figure something out. She decided that she should probably help him. "I got very close. Which is actually more than I would have expected!"

"Well… thank you," he said.

"For what?"

"For… letting me… do that," he smiled sheepishly.

"Oh. Yeah," Ginny laughed softly. "No problem."

She rolled onto her side so that she and Harry were face-to-face. She kissed him softly.

"Now, what about you?" she said with a sly smile, but he shook his head.

"No. Just you for tonight."

"What?"

"Just you," he said again, smoothing her hair away from her forehead. "You should sleep."

"Can I sleep in here with you?"

"Of course. As long as you're up before your mum finds you here."

"I will be," she agreed, feeling for the blankets and pulling them up to cover her and Harry and she nestled close to him. He threw his arm over her, and she breathed in his scent as her eyes closed. She was only now realizing just how tired she was.

And almost instantly, she was asleep.

And she stayed asleep.


	3. Chapter 2

**A/N:** "Maybe _tonight_ I will finally finish writing that chapter!" Kayla said, every single night for the past week and a half, shortly before falling asleep on top of her computer after having written maybe a single paragraph.

I mentioned in my last author's note that my reasons for not updating quickly are not for lack of knowing what to write, but simply lack of time. I feel like I must reiterate this because I feel bad that this took quite a while when it really didn't need to take very long at all! And even though I'm sure nobody cares about my life, it makes me feel better to explain, so just bear with me here! I'm in the midst of designing costumes for a play with a very tiny budget, which means that I have to make a lot of the pieces, and sewing is very time-consuming! But since being a costume designer doesn't pay the bills (yet), that's on top of my other full-time job. I really wanted to get this chapter up, and finally I did! However, the next update may not come for a while. Probably until after the play I'm designing opens at the end of the month. _Hopefully_ you guys can just bear with me and won't lose interest because I really really want you here! All of you! This story has only just begun and I know where it's going and I'm excited to get there and hopefully you'll stick with me, even though I'm going to be slow for a while.

Also? Anybody who catches my ridiculous musical theatre reference in this chapter gets like, twenty high-fives (which equals one high-one-hundred, so like... super cool, right?)

Okay, on with the story, sorry for rambling (I do that a lot).

 **...**

Diagon Alley still wasn't back to the way it used to be. There were still some boarded-up shops and the atmosphere wasn't full of the same excitement that it once was, but it had made leaps and bounds from the past couple of years. Even Ollivander had returned, although he was only in his shop for a few hours each day. Luna had been helping him at the shop, having grown close to him when they were imprisoned together - a story that Ginny had heard and masked her horror with a stony face. Ginny stopped to say hello to Luna, noticing the strange-looking potted plant on a counter top that she was sure had never been there before.

"Brightens it up a bit, doesn't it?" Luna smiled, noticing Ginny's gaze.

"Yeah, it does," she agreed. "It's really nice that you're helping Ollivander, Luna."

"Yes, well, I think we all could use a little help right now, and we should all give it when we're able to."

After Ginny's brief visit with Luna, she went to find her mother in the crowded Flourish and Blotts. She spotted her, just finishing up paying for Ginny's new schoolbooks.

"Well, that's everything on your list. Do you need new robes?"

"No, Mum. The ones I have now are just fine," she said.

"Are you sure? It's really no problem," she offered, and Ginny glanced at her, somewhat taken aback. Molly smiled and shrugged. "It was different when we were sending five of you to school at once. But it's just you now, and with your father's new job, well… we could get you a few things that aren't on the list. In fact! You've been made quidditch captain! That deserves something nice. So, what'll it be?"

"Really?" she asked. Molly nodded. Ginny mulled it over. She really didn't need new robes. She considered a broomstick, like Ron had gotten when he had been made prefect, especially since she was the captain of the quidditch team. Just when she had decided that that was what she wanted, another thought struck her. Once she was back at school, her only regular means of communication with Harry would be through letters. She wanted something reliable to make sure that their letters got to each other as quickly as possible. And with Hedwig gone….

"I think I'd like an owl," she finally said.

"An owl it is," Molly nodded, and they set off in the direction of Eeylops Owl Emporium. They didn't spend long in the shop. Ginny didn't have to look around very much before she set eyes on him and knew that he was meant to be hers. They emerged less than fifteen minutes later, Ginny holding a cage containing a magnificent eagle owl with brilliant yellow eyes.

"Yitzhak," she declared as his name. She was so enamoured with her new bird that she nearly forgot that their next stop was to see George. Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes was just as crowded as she had ever seen it. Clearly, business was doing well. And yet, she was still nervous as they entered the front doors and went inside. Everything about the store looked fine. It looked as though nothing had changed. Like the same two people were running things.

She saw George, talking to a young customer, showing him some sort of product, laughing with him, and then patting his back as he walked away, product in hand. He looked okay. He looked happy, almost. And it was weird because for a split second, Ginny nearly expected to see both of them. She expected for Fred to walk out from the back room and join George in selling their things. But then she remembered that it couldn't happen. She remembered that Fred wasn't there.

"Well, if it isn't the two most beautiful women I've seen today!" George exclaimed, seeing them.

"Oh, George," Molly laughed, pulling her son into a hug once he was near. Once she released him, he moved to Ginny next, swooping in to hug her quickly.

"And who do we have here?" he asked, gesturing to Yitzhak.

"He's my new owl," Ginny grinned.

"Your sister was made captain of the Gryffindor quidditch team," Molly announced proudly.

"Really?! Brilliant!" he yelled. Ginny beamed at him. He proceeded to invite the two to his flat just upstairs, above the shop, and they went. Ginny knew that her mother had let George know that they were coming to visit, and it showed. She had lived with the twins for long enough to know that they were never tidy, but George's flat showed obvious signs of having been cleaned recently. She wasn't sure, but she had an idea that George was trying to show them that he was doing alright on his own, without Fred.

Molly made tea. George and Ginny sat side-by-side at the small kitchen table while their mother talked about their father's new position at the Ministry. Ginny watched George, looking at him, searching for some sort of signs of how he was truly doing. He smiled, made jokes, and talked about work.

"I never thought I'd actually really appreciate Ron, but he's been really helpful around the shop. Don't you dare tell him I said that, though."

"I wish I could help you," Ginny mused out loud.

"Ah, but if you were _here_ helping _me_ , who would be at home helping Harry? How is he, by the way?"

"Fine," Ginny shrugged.

"I don't envy his position. Tons of fans, impossible to go anywhere…. I bet he's starting to feel pretty trapped inside that house."

"He starts auror training soon," Ginny said.

"Yeah, I know. Ron, too. I'm losing my assistant. Luckily, it's after you lot go back to Hogwarts so we won't be as busy."

"Will you come to the Burrow to visit before I go back to school?" Ginny asked as her mother began to clean up their tea and was out of earshot.

"Ginny…."

"Just one dinner? Please?"

"I don't know."

"Why not?"

"Because," he said, and then shook his head.

"George, please?" she asked, looking up at him, her eyes wide, frowning slightly. He sighed.

"I'll think about it. Okay?"

"Okay."

…

The Burrow was quiet. It usually was during the days. It was also seemingly empty, but Ginny knew that there was at least one occupant somewhere. She deposited her new school things in her bedroom, setting Yitzhak's cage atop her dresser.

"I'll be right back, okay?" she said to the owl. "I want Harry to meet you and then you can finally stretch your wings."

Yitzhak just blinked his yellow eyes at Ginny and then she left, hurrying towards Harry's room. The door was closed. She knocked softly. She listened for Harry's voice, but heard nothing. She opened the door, peering inside. The room was dark, all of the curtains drawn, and at first glance, it looked empty. But then Ginny noticed the top of a messy head of hair just on the other side of the bed.

"Harry?"

"Ginny?"

"Yeah," she said, no longer waiting for an invitation to enter the room, walking around the bed and finding Harry sitting on the floor, leaning against the bed, wand in hand. He looked up at her. "What are you doing on the floor? In the dark?"

He was silent for a moment, still looking up at her, frowning slightly.

"I don't know," he finally said.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "I was just…. er…. What time is it?"

"It's around four," she answered, sitting down on the floor next to him, reaching her hand out to his, lacing their fingers together. It wasn't the first time that she had found Harry sitting silently, zoning out, usually gripping tightly onto his wand.

"Did you just get back from Diagon Alley?"

"Yeah. I had a really nice time with Mum. We saw George and he was doing alright. He said he might come to dinner soon," she said, trying to do enough speaking so that Harry didn't need to. She learned from the last few times that he acted that way that he seemed to have a hard time carrying on a conversation. So she talked. "I wasn't sure if Ron was spending the day at the shop with George or somewhere else with Hermione, but he wasn't there, so I guess he was with her. Oh, and I saw Luna! We didn't talk long, but she's been helping Ollivander and I think that it's so good for both of them. And you'll never guess what I got! Mum got me an owl! He's so beautiful. You can meet him later. Other than that it was just a normal trip to get school things."

Harry was staring at her. When she noticed, she tried not to blush, but she couldn't help it. Even after everything, the way that he looked at her made her feel like she was eleven years old again.

"What?"

"Nothing," he shook his head, a small smile creeping onto his lips. He unlaced their fingers and shifted so that he was turned slightly towards Ginny. He touched her cheek and then leaned in, kissing her softly. "You were gone when I woke up this morning."

"Yeah," she nodded, staring into his vividly green eyes. "I left early."

"I know. I knew you would be, but I was still a little disappointed when you weren't there."

"Well, I'm here now," she smiled.

"You are, aren't you?"

"I am."

He kissed her again.

…

"It's got to be driving you crazy, though, mate. When was the last time you actually left the house?" Ron asked, sitting in the living room of the Burrow, on the sofa with Hermione leaning gently against him. Harry and Ginny sat on the floor in front of them, playing a game of chess.

"The last time I actually went out somewhere? That time when I was with you, remember? And it was mad. I don't mind it, really. I go visit Teddy once a week. And when I'm here, it's not like I'm inside all day," Harry answered, moving one of his pieces.

"I'm sure Ginny is keeping him plenty company," Hermione smiled.

"Hermione, _please_ ," Ron grimaced and Ginny let out a snort of laughter. "I don't need to think about that."

"She didn't even say anything dirty. You're the one who thought of that all on your own," Ginny said with a grin.

"Look, I am fully supportive of this relationship as long as I never have to know about anything, ever. Even if you end up getting married and having kids, I will just pretend that your children are all adopted just to… not think about it."

"Whoa. Slow down there, Ron," Harry mumbled, and Ginny herself could feel a sudden heat in her face at her brother's words. She would have been lying to say that she had never thought about a similar future with Harry, but she wasn't about to start throwing any of it around so casually like that.

"It's going to be so weird at Hogwarts without you two this year," Hermione said, changing the subject much to Ginny's relief, and probably everybody else's as well.

"We'll come for Hogsmeade weekends whenever we can," Harry promised.

"And now you get to help _me_ with homework instead of these clowns!" Ginny said, glancing back at the chessboard as Harry mumbled something to one of his pieces who moved forward, smashing Ginny's queen to pieces. "Oh, fuck you! You motherfuck-"

"Ginevra Molly Weasley!" came Molly's shrill voice from the living room's entrance, having come in just in time for Ginny's outburst. Ginny slapped a hand over her mouth as Harry, Hermione, and Ron all averted their eyes, Ron's face turning pink from trying not to laugh. "I swear, I have no idea where any of you kids learned that kind of language! Nearly every single one of you, filthy mouths! I expected better of you, young lady!"

"Sorry, Mum," Ginny muttered, staring at her hands in her lap.

"Come help set the table for dinner."

"Okay," she agreed, standing up. The other three also began to move, but Molly stopped them.

"No, no, you three are fine. Just Ginny."

She left the living room without looking back and she heard the others explode with laughter as soon as she was out of sight. She scowled and huffed, stalking into the kitchen, but as soon as she was there, her scowl disappeared.

"George!"

"Hello there, my foul-mouthed sister."

"When did you get here?"

"Oh, I got here _just_ in time," he smiled. "Who were you calling a motherfucker?"

"George!" Molly yelled.

"Harry," Ginny said as they both ignored their mother. "He beat me at chess."

"Mum, being beat at chess deserves a few swear words, you really can't blame her," George said. Molly pointedly ignored him.

"I was going to call him a motherfucking dickhead, but…," Ginny muttered under her breath so that her mother wouldn't hear it. But George heard it and he laughed, nodding his approval.

"Ginny, please set the table. Dinner's almost ready and Bill and Fleur will be here any moment now."

"Okay, okay, jeez. I'm doing it."

She did, and before she had finished, her oldest brother and his wife arrived, and Fleur immediately began to help Ginny with the table. Before long, they were all sat, eating the meal that Molly had prepared. Ginny sat between Harry and George, laughing at George's jokes and occasionally slipping her hand beneath the table to touch Harry's. Harry's hand settled on Ginny's knee, and Ginny let her hand fall atop his, resting it there.

"George seems to be doing really well!" Hermione exclaimed once dinner had ended and she, Ginny, Ron, and Harry had taken on the duty of cleaning up.

"I told you that he was," Ron said.

"I know, but it's nice to see it with my own eyes."

"I wonder if he'll come around here more often," Ginny said, pointing her wand at the sinkful of dishes. She was nowhere near as good at household cleaning spells as her mother was. Her wandwork was hardly doing a thing to the messy plates. "Damn, how does Mum make this look so easy?"

"Here," Hermione said, stepping in, pointing her wand into the sink, and Ginny watched as she made it look just as easy as her mother did.

"You're so good at that, Hermione," Ron told her.

"Yeah, yeah," she smiled.

Ginny stepped back, allowing Hermione to take over completely. She glanced around the kitchen. Everything that needed to be done was done. It barely took any time when four people were doing it.

She thought about what Hermione had said earlier, about how it was going to be weird at Hogwarts without Harry and Ron, and for a fleeting moment, Ginny wanted to just stop time and stay there in that kitchen with all of them and not move forward at all. She had been at Hogwarts without all three of them. She spent all of the previous year without them. But now she had them back and she wanted to stay with them. She wanted to stay with Harry. She knew that things would never be like they were then. They had no obligations. They spent full days together. They were lazy and free to be so. But summer was coming to an end soon.

Harry caught her eye. He smiled at her. She smiled back. Ron and Hermione were laughing, over by the sink, a stream of bubbles floating up above them.

The moment was interrupted by a crashing sound from the living room, followed by yelling. All four of them spun around, hurrying towards the commotion.

"George! George, stop it!" Bill was yelling as the four of them reaching the living room. Molly was sitting on the sofa, audibly crying, Fleur was beside her, hands over her mouth, eyes wide. Bill, Arthur, and George all stood, Bill with his wand pointed at George.

Ginny's eyes scanned the room, trying to understand what was happening. She landed on George's right hand, bleeding heavily. And then she saw it:

The clock. The clock that nobody in the family liked to look at anymore. The clock with all of their names on it.

Apparently, the clock didn't know what to do when one of the family members died. The hand with Fred's name on it was perpetually pointed to " _lost_ ". Nobody knew how to change it, nobody knew what to do, so they just ignored it. Ginny had done such a good job of ignoring it that she had forgotten about it completely. It was only now, as she stared at the scene unfolding in front of her, frozen in the doorway with the other three, that she realized why George didn't like coming to the Burrow.

"Why hasn't anybody fixed it?!" George yelling, pointing to it, the glass broken, but all of the hands still intact.

"George," Arthur said calmly. "Sit down. We'll mend your hand and then we can figure this out together. Okay?"

" _No_. Tell me why nobody's fixed it. How can you stand it? Do you want to be reminded? Do you want to be reminded that he's _dead_?"

"So, what, then?" Bill asked. "Do you just want him to be gone?"

"He _is_ gone. He's gone and we don't need reminders of it all over the place!" George shouted, starting towards the clock again, but Bill reached out, grabbing him by the wrist. It all happened very quickly. Ginny saw Bill grasp at George, she saw George resisting, she saw them both struggling, she heard her father yelling at them both, and then there was too much movement to keep up with, and Fleur was jumping off of the couch, but Arthur put his arm out to keep her back, and Molly was crying even more, and then the two men were fighting.

Ginny was rooted to the spot. She wanted to yell out, tell them to stop, but even if she had, she doubted that she would have been heard. She felt Ron and Harry rushing past her and then she saw as they interfered, trying to pull Bill and George away from each other. Ron grabbed Bill easily, but Harry didn't have as easy a time with George.

"Get _off_ of me! Get off of me!" he yelled, flailing his arms, his elbow colliding hard with Harry's stomach. Harry stumbled back, hands falling off of George, and that moment of freedom was all George needed. He lunged towards the clock again, reaching through where the glass had already broken, grabbing the hand with Fred's name on it and pulling on it.

Bill didn't try to stop him again. Nobody else did, either. They all stood there. All of them just watched.

"George. Please don't," Molly cried weakly. But he didn't listen. He pried and pried until finally, he broke the arm off. And then he turned, towards the doorway where Ginny was still standing. She heard Hermione gasp and jump out of the way, but even as George strode closer to her, Ginny didn't move.

"Get out of the way, Ginny," George growled at her. But she didn't. She just stared up at him, searching his face, trying to understand something that she didn't even understand herself. " _Move_ , Ginny."

"George."

He pushed his way past her, and she felt her shoulder slam against the doorway.

"Hey!" she heard Harry shout.

"Hey! You get back here!" Ron yelled, following George's path, through the doorway, to the kitchen. "You're a fucking prat, you know that?!"

The sound of the door in the kitchen opening and closing twice in quick succession sounded throughout the silent living room, as well as Ron's yells. And then there was nothing. Until Ron came back in, grumbling swear words under his breath.

"He just fucking apparated away," he said. Molly didn't even scold him for his language.

"Are you okay?" Harry asked her. She didn't even see him approach her. She nodded, ignoring the throbbing pain in her shoulder.

"Are you?"

"I'm fine."

She stared at the broken glass littering the living room floor. She didn't want to look at the clock. Even though she had been ignoring it the past few months, there was still something reassuring about knowing that Fred was still there. But now he was gone. He was really gone. And she couldn't bear to look.

…

" _Muffliato_."

"Good evening."

"Hi."

Ginny crawled into Harry's bed, pulling the blankets up to her shoulders, cuddling close to him, nuzzling her face into his neck, breathing in his scent. He wrapped an arm around her, holding her close. She hadn't even bothered trying to fall asleep by herself in her own bed. She knew she would end up in Harry's room eventually. It just seemed easier to come straight there.

Harry ran his fingers through her hair. She let out a soft sigh, looking up at him, meeting his eyes.

"I think I'm getting a little bit too accustomed to coming in here," Ginny said softly.

"Is that a bad thing?"

"Not until I'm at Hogwarts and have to sleep alone."

"Ah. Right."

"What, you didn't forget, did you?"

"I've been trying to not think about it," he said.

"Oh? How's that been going for you?"

"Not very well. You and Hermione both keep bringing it up."

"Sorry," she smiled.

"Last year, I got into the habit of watching the Marauder's Map most nights just to see your name…. That's kind of weird, I know, but…."

"You did?" Ginny asked, wondering about the number of times that they may have been thinking of each other at the same time.

"And that was _before_ I knew what it was like to sleep with you."

"I'm going to miss this. Not just the sleeping arrangements, but… spending the day with you, not having to do anything…."

"Me too," Harry agreed.

"Do you think it will ever be like this again?"

"Maybe when we're a hundred years old," he smiled.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," she sighed.

"Hey, we've still got a little bit before you leave. We'll make the best of it!" Harry told her.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Listen, I've been thinking…. As much as I don't really mind staying here all day, especially with you, I am getting a little bit… stir-crazy, I suppose."

"Of course you are."

"But it's hard to go anywhere, when…."

"When you have hoards of adoring fans who want to talk to you and touch you and not leave you alone to do anything?"

"Exactly," he laughed. "But there are people who don't care about me. Don't even know who I am."

"Muggles!" Ginny exclaimed, understanding where he was going with this.

"Yes. Muggles."

"You want to go into a Muggle town?"

"Just for a day. Just to _do_ something."

"I think it's brilliant. Let's do it."

"Alright. Okay. Great," Harry grinned, his fingers still running through Ginny's hair. They both fell silent for a moment and they just laid there, looking at each other. Finally, Harry moved towards her and kissed her softly. She rested a hand on his cheek as they continued to kiss, slowly, lazily, memorizing the feeling of each other's lips. Harry's hand moved from Ginny's hair to her waist, and then just beneath the hem of her shirt that had already begun to ride up.

Ginny kissed him harder and his hand moved further and further up her shirt until it was upon her bare breast. They moved in sync as Ginny rolled from her side onto her back and Harry was able to slip his other hand beneath her shirt, bunching it up as he gently grasped her other breast.

"Hold on," Ginny mumbled, breaking the kiss, and she reached to her shirt and pulled it up, shifting around a bit so that she was able to pull it over her head, dropping it off of the bed, down to the floor. She settled back down onto the pillow and saw as Harry stared at her, his mouth slightly open, taking her all in. And then he dropped his head down, attaching his lips to Ginny's neck, kissing, sucking, and trailing his teeth down a slow path to her collarbones, her shoulder, her chest, and she let out a soft sigh as his tongue brushed against a nipple, her other breast cupped in his hand. She brushed her fingers through his hair, and he gradually moved back up towards her, capturing her lips in another kiss. The hand upon her breast trailed down her body until it reached the waistband of her pajama pants, and then slid beneath. She let her knees fall apart, and then Harry's mouth left hers, and he was moving down her body, hands gripping at her pajama pants. He sat up and then back on his feet, between her legs, his knees beneath her bent ones, and he looked at her, and she looked back at him. He was wordlessly asking for permission, and she nodded. He pulled both her pants and underwear down at the same time, and then she was completely naked, lying there in front of him, and her heart was pounding as she watched him, his eyes roaming over her.

"Would it completely kill the mood if I put my glasses on right now?" he asked, and she laughed.

"A little bit, yeah."

"Alright then, I won't," he said. And he continued to stare at her for what seemed like ages, and Ginny could feel colour rising to her cheeks.

"Harry," she said impatiently.

"Hang on, just… give me a second. I'm trying to burn this image into my memory."

"Okay, that's great, but I'm completely naked and you're still fully dressed and you're staring at me and it's really not fair."

"Fine, fine," he sighed dramatically, running his hands along her outer thighs, down to her butt, and then he pushed himself back, coming to rest on his stomach, burying his face between her legs.

"That's better," Ginny mumbled, eyes fluttering shut, mouth falling open to let out a soft moan. His arms wrapped around her legs, hands resting upon her hips, moving them up her sides and back down. She focused on the feeling of his mouth on her, his hands on her, the way the strands of his hair felt between her fingers. Her toes clenched, back arching slightly away from the bed, head tilting back.

"Harry," she moaned, and his fingertips pressed against her sides, and she wanted him to grab harder, to leave marks on her. Noises fell past her lips, noises that she had no control over, and she was gripping onto Harry's head, moving her hips, and he didn't stop her, didn't hold her down, just allowed her to take control. She wanted more, though. Even as the feelings began to overwhelm her, she wanted more. She loosened her hold on his head, squirming away from him slightly as it all became a little bit too much for her to handle.

"Harry," she panted, pushing herself up onto her elbows, looking down at him, and his eyes looked up to meet hers, and his mouth moved to rest against her inner thigh.

"Harry," she said again. "I want…"

"What? What do you want?"

"You. I want you. All of you."

"All of…. You mean…?"

She nodded.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I mean… if you want to, too, of course."

"Of _course_ I want to," he smiled, sitting up and holding out a hand towards Ginny. She grasped it and he pulled her into a sitting position as well. She couldn't help but smile, reaching towards him, touching his cheek softly, and they both leaned in towards each other, kissing. She grabbed his shirt, moving it up his body, and they broke apart as she pulled it over his head and arms. They kissed again, wrapping their arms around each other, and the sensation of their bare torsos against each other thrilled Ginny, made her want to feel even more of him. She had both of her arms wrapped around his neck as she pushed herself onto her knees and then pushed Harry back, into a lying position, their heads now at the foot of the bed. She had a knee on either side of his hips, leaning over him, a curtain of red hair falling around their faces, and her hands roamed over his bare chest as his hands came to rest upon her butt, grabbing it hard. Her fingers ran over a patch of skin on his chest that felt different - hardly noticeable, but she still felt it. She pulled away from him, looking at it, an obvious scar.

"What's this?" she asked, running her fingers along the perfectly oval shape of it. Harry tensed and averted his gaze. She immediately regretted asking the question. She knew that it had something to do with what he had done that past year.

"The locket…," he said softly.

" _Oh_ ," she whispered, understanding. He had told her. Not in extreme detail, but enough for her to connect the dots.

"It's ugly, I know, I-"

"No," she cut him off, shaking her head. "It's not ugly. I don't think it's ugly."

"You don't?"

"I think it's beautiful," she told him.

"I think you're beautiful," he muttered, just above a whisper, and she smiled, dropping her head down to his chest, placing her lips against the scar and kissing it softly. She reached for his arm, remembering the two small scars there and pressed two kisses right next to each other, on top of them. His hand was next, over the scars of words that were still readable at times. She was sure that there were more scars that she was unaware of. She would discover them all, in time, and she was determined to kiss every single one of them. She reached his face and leaned in to kiss his forehead. When she looked at him he was smiling, looking at her in a way that made it feel as though she had butterflies in her stomach and bluebirds in her chest. She struggled to find the words that she wanted to say next.

"You should take your pants off," was what came out of her mouth.

"Okay," Harry nodded. She climbed off of him and watched him pull his pajama bottoms down. They were both naked, sitting on the bed, looking at each, and for a moment it seemed as though neither of them was completely sure what to do next. But then they were kissing, touching, hands discovering new territory, familiarizing themselves with each other's bodies.

They laid down, Ginny on her back, Harry between her legs, moving against each other. He looked at her. She nodded. And then he was inside of her. She watched his face, watched his eyes close, heard the moan immediately escape him. She had been expecting pain. She had always heard that the first time was going to painful. But it didn't hurt. Not really. Perhaps it was because she was so comfortable with him and she was relaxed. Perhaps it was because she was just lucky.

"Are you okay?" he asked her, and he wasn't moving much, and she knew that it was for her benefit.

"Yeah," she nodded. "You can move - slowly, though, please."

She winced as he moved, feeling a small amount of pain, but it was bearable. She held onto him, his hips slowly rocking back and forth, his breathing already ragged.

"Shit," he mumbled, dropping his head to Ginny's shoulder. "I'm really sorry, Ginny."

"Sorry for what?"

"I'm going to last like, a minute at most," he admitted, and she let out a soft laugh. "Don't laugh!"

"I'm sorry!" she continued to laugh. "I just think it's really cute that you're apologizing in advance."

"Stop it," he said, but he was laughing now, too, even as he continued to move inside of her.

"Faster," she commanded, and he complied. She moaned softly.

"Noises… not helping… Stop being sexy…"

"Think of un-sexy things!"

"Okay… Yeah…," Harry said, nodding, above her, his eyes screwed shut. "Un-sexy things… Like… Like… There is literally nothing in my brain right now except-" he let out a loud moan, his hips moving fast, his body tensing and shaking, more noises falling from his mouth, and then collapsing on top of Ginny, breathing heavily.

"Shit," he gasped. She couldn't help but smile, pushing his hair off of his forehead, lightly damp with sweat.

"You didn't finish what you were saying. There was nothing in your brain except what?" Ginny asked him.

"You," he panted, looking up at her. "I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing."

"Sorry - I mean. Okay," he said. She kissed him. He rolled off of her to lay beside her, resting his head upon his arm, looking over at her, touching her hair. He softly nudged his nose against hers and then dropped a kiss on the tip of it. She wasn't able to stop smiling, even if she had wanted to.

"Next time will be better," she told him.

"Next time?" he raised his eyebrows.

"Yeah. Don't you remember?" she asked, "We've still got a little bit before I leave. We'll make the best of it."

"That's right. I do remember that!" he grinned.

"Yeah," she laughed. "I thought you would."


	4. Chapter 3

**A/N:** I'm back, I'm back, I'm back, I'm back! I'm back! Okay, okay, okay, I know that this took me forever. I said that I would hopefully start updating again at the end of the month, meaning the end of August, and here we are, in the middle of September! But things were really hectic for longer than I anticipated, but it's all finally calming down again which means regular updates (hopefully)! Just so you all know, during my little time away, getting notifications of new story followers and getting reviews and stuff made me very very happy and made me really anticipate being able to write again, so THANK YOU. And thank you for being patient with me, and I'm baaaaack!

* * *

"Wait."

"Ouch!"

"Sorry!"

"Hold on. What if you-"

"Ow."

"Shit."

"Just…."

"Try putting your legs like…."

"Wait. Okay. I think…."

"Is that…?"

"Better."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Okay."

Why they chose a sofa, of all places, to have sex again, Ginny had no idea. They hadn't really planned it. It just seemed like a good idea. But they were hardly skilled enough in a bed to be able to really figure out how to do it on a much more narrow area, with a back and arms and cushions that knees sunk in between and that seemed to keep wanting to slide towards the floor. But they were determined to make it work.

Their day trip into a muggle town had been going really well. Nobody bothered them. They wandered around aimlessly. And then Harry remembered that he technically owned a house. An entire _empty_ house.

First, they fucked in the room that Ginny had slept in whenever she had stayed at Grimmauld Place. Then they redressed, and Ginny followed Harry as he wandered around, looking at the place. He told her that he hadn't been there since the day he infiltrated the Ministry with Ron and Hermione. He said that things were surprisingly tidy, given that he was sure that the house had likely been torn apart when it had been found out that they were there. He said that it was probably Kreacher's doing, and told her more about the elf's drastic change of attitude.

Then, they fucked on the sofa. At least, they tried to.

Ginny's hands were grasping onto Harry's shoulders, her legs on either side of him, moving up and down in his lap. His hands were firmly pressed against her butt, moving with her. He moved his hands, arms wrapping tightly around her waist and holding her close to him as he came, and then they both sat there, tangled together, rocking their hips slightly as they caught their breath.

"I wanna make you come," he murmured in her ear. "Tell me what to do."

"Touch me," she said, and he did. They shifted so that Ginny was on her back, against the arm of the sofa, a leg thrown over the back, and Harry was between her knees. He did what she told him to. And when words failed her due to moaning, he just kept doing whatever it was that he was doing.

"Mouth," she gasped out, and he went down on her. She could feel it, the feeling in the pit of her stomach, in the way her toes curled and the way her legs shook. She gripped tightly onto a cushion, her body tensing, and she needed release, she needed it, she needed it but it wasn't coming.

"Come on, come on," she urged her own body, and she was at the very very edge but she couldn't get over it, couldn't get to the other side. Harry was trying so hard. His movement didn't cease, even for a moment, fingers and tongue both hard at work, but nothing was happening. She was just teetering, and it began to be too much.

She let out a loud, frustrated groan, as she reached down, pushing Harry away, too sensitive to take any more.

"Am I doing something wrong?" Harry finally asked her after some time.

"No. It's not you. I don't know what's wrong with me," she sighed.

"I don't think there's anything wrong with you."

"You're doing everything just fine. My body is just refusing to cooperate."

"I'll keep trying. Whenever you want. As many times as it takes," Harry offered.

"We only have three days left before I leave," she reminded him sadly.

"Three days gives us plenty of opportunities."

"Yeah, I guess so," she smiled.

"How long have we been gone?" Harry asked suddenly, looking towards the clock.

"A while. We should probably head back soon."

"Yeah. We wouldn't want your mom to get suspicious…."

"Hey, we have plenty of evidence that we were in muggle towns, just like we said we were!"

"Fair point. But we shouldn't stay much longer."

"Alright. Have you seen my underwear?"

 **…**

Three days seemed to pass by in an instant. The night before her return to Hogwarts, after Ginny had packed everything into her trunk, she laid atop her bed with Harry, not saying anything, just lying there with each other, being together. Ginny wouldn't be able to sneak into Harry's room later that night to sleep in his bed with him. Hermione was staying over so that they could leave for King's Cross Station together the next morning, and she would be staying in Ginny's room with her. As much as she knew that Hermione would hardly make a fuss if she saw Ginny leaving and not returning until morning, she figured that it would just be easiest for her to sleep in her own bed.

She didn't know how long they had been laying there. She also didn't care. She wanted to stop time and lay there with him forever. But, just as the past three days had taught her, wishing for time to move slower only seemed to speed it up.

Hermione arrived. Everybody had dinner together. And before she knew it, she was getting ready for bed.

"Are you nervous to go back?" Ginny asked Hermione as they settled down to sleep.

"Yes," Hermione admitted from her cot. "For about a million different reasons."

"Not having Ron and Harry around?"

"That's one reason. One of the main ones…. Having to take classes with a brand new group of people…. I mean, my year, they at least were used to me, you know? And being in classes with me and everything. But…."

"Are you worried that they will tease you for being a bit of a know-it-all? Because if they do, I will hex them and tell them that you're part of the reason we're all still alive," Ginny said, and she could hear Hermione laugh softly from across the room.

"Are you nervous at all?" Hermione asked.

"I don't know," she shrugged, even though she knew Hermione couldn't see her. "Last year was so…. I mean. I know this year will be better, so at least there's that."

"Are you going to sign up for counseling?"

"No. Are you?"

"Yes, I think so. I don't think it would hurt to give it a shot."

"You don't think it will be weird?"

"No," she said. "I don't think so. My parents used to take me to a psychologist when I was a kid…."

"Why?"

"Oh, they were worried about me. I didn't really have any friends, and when I started telling them that I could move things with my mind…. I just thought that I had telekinesis, but that's probably because I had just read _Matilda_ , and then I read _Carrie_ , but that book is really not suitable for any nine-year-old, and it frightened me, and I started having nightmares, and…. well, my parents had plenty of reasons. So they took me to a psychologist once a week and I mostly just played games and did puzzles or talked about school…. And it turned out that the telekinesis was just magic, and then I went to a school to learn magic and I made friends…."

"How long did you have to go?"

"I started going when I was nine up until I found out that I was going to Hogwarts."

"And you didn't mind it?" Ginny asked.

"Not really. It was kind of nice to have somebody to talk to, even if it was just about trivial things," Hermione answered. "You don't want to sign up for counseling because you think it will be uncomfortable?"

"I don't know," Ginny sighed. Truthfully, she had been going back and forth on the matter for quite some time.

"You have another night still to decide. Think about it."

"Yeah," Ginny agreed. "I will."

 **…**

Everybody was staring at them. It was expected, of course, but still unsettling.

"You really didn't need to come," Ginny said to Harry, standing on the train platform while nearly every person that passed by them did a double-take, and sometimes stopped and stood, staring at them. She could hear the whispers, even over the sound of the train and the shouting and the owls and everything else. Yitzhak sat in his cage, atop Ginny's trunk and she and Harry stood beside it, facing each other. Next to them, Ron and Hermione had been wrapped in the same embrace for the past few minutes.

"I wanted to come," Harry said. "I should be able to properly see my girlfriend off, shouldn't I?"

"Ah, yes, your girlfriend. That's what people are gonna know me as, you know? Harry Potter's girlfriend. That's me! Nothing more. Just the whore that Harry Potter was kissing on Platform Nine and Three Quarters," Ginny said, and she was well aware that her tone made it difficult to tell if she was joking or not. _She_ wasn't even sure if she was joking or not.

"I hope that's not the case. I never want you to be reduced to just my girlfriend," Harry replied, eyebrows furrowed together.

"Oh, but I will be. They'll call me fat."

"But you're not."

"A slut."

"You're not."

"Boring."

"You're definitely not."

"Ugly."

"Not even close."

"They'll say I'm only after your money."

"You're not."

"Oh, actually, that one _is_ true. I am."

"Oh! Well...that's fine," Harry shrugged, and they both laughed, and Harry wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her close to him. "Nobody else matters."

"I know," Ginny nodded, and they kissed. Ginny was aware that people were watching them, but as their lips met, everyone around them simply faded away. And they didn't matter.

The train blew its whistle. It was leaving soon. Ginny stayed wrapped in Harry's arms for just a moment longer.

"I'll miss you."

"I'll write."

"Make sure to let me know your first Hogsmeade weekend. I'll be there."

"Okay."

They reluctantly pulled away from each other. Next to them, Ron and Hermione were still saying their goodbyes.

"I love you," she heard her brother say.

"I love you, too," Hermione replied.

Finally, they broke apart, and Hermione looked towards Ginny.

"Ready?"

"I guess so."

"Isn't it strange," Ron said to them, "That you might actually have a _normal_ year at Hogwarts for once?"

"A normal year at Hogwarts?" Hermione laughed, and Ginny joined her.

"Now _that_ would just be _weird_."

 **…**

Just as Ginny had expected, people stared at her as she walked through the train. They stared at Hermione, too. Whispers followed them as they searched for an empty compartment. Finally, they ran into Luna who had already secured them a compartment. The train ride was rather relaxing - they didn't talk about the war or deaths or Harry, or anything that Ginny had no desire to talk about. It stayed lighthearted and fun until the light outside became darker and they eventually changed into their Hogwarts robes. When the train stopped, they got off, and it was all so completely normal - Hagrid was calling for the first-years, the sights and sounds were familiar and comfortable, Ginny had Hermione and Luna by her side. For the first time, Ginny actually felt a small twinge of excitement about returning to Hogwarts, knowing that this year wouldn't be at all like the one before it.

"Oh," Hermione whispered beside her. Ginny looked at her and followed her captivated gaze towards the carriages that would take them to the castle. And the thestrals.

"You can both see them now, can't you?" Luna asked, and Ginny nodded.

"It's probably alarming at first, but they're really quite beautiful once you get used to them."

"No. They are beautiful," Ginny said, moving forward towards the carriages. They got into one and began to move towards the castle. It wasn't long before they were inside, in the Great Hall, saying goodbye to Luna as she went for the Ravenclaw table, and then finding a seat at the Gryffindor table. Ginny glanced around, looking at the other around her. The familiar faces, some looking excited, others nervous - especially the faces of the younger students. She caught sight of Dennis Creevey, and her stomach lurched, remembering that Colin should be there, but he wasn't. She quickly looked away, and looked instead at the table at the front of the Great Hall. She smiled, noticing Professor McGonagall in her rightful place at the seat of headmistress. There were new faces that she didn't recognize.

"How many new professors are there?" Ginny asked Hermione.

"Well, obviously there's a new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor… There will have to be a new Transfiguration professor…."

"Transfiguration without McGonagall?!"

"I know, I don't even want to think about it!"

"Oh, look, the first years are here," Ginny said, looking towards the entrance and seeing a line of first years following Professor Flitwick who was barely shorter than any of them. The Sorting Hat was more beat-up looking than ever before. but its message was cheerful. The first years were sorted, and then Professor McGonagall stood up from her seat at the staff table.

She opened her mouth to speak, but as she did so, somebody farther down the Gryffindor table shouted out "headmistress!" followed by whooping and a smattering of applause which quickly broke out along the entire Gryffindor table and spread throughout the entire Great Hall. People stood, clapping for their new headmistress. Even professors at the staff table got to their feet to cheer for her.

"Okay, okay," Professor McGonagall said, waving her hands, attempting to quiet them. Finally, the noise began to cease, and people took their seats once more.

"Thank you for that...very warm welcome," McGonagall smiled. "And I would like to welcome you all. Those who are returning, and those who are here for the first time… welcome. There are several matters to discuss, but before we get to that, let us first eat."

And with that, the feast began, and Ginny ate.

"So now that you're back," she said to Hermione "are you going to start up with S.P.E.W. again?"

"I would like to!" Hermione nodded.

"Are you going to leave hats lying around the common room again?"

"No. I've thought about it, and I've decided that that wasn't the best approach. I haven't thought of another approach yet, though."

"You will," Ginny assured her. "And when you do, I want to help."

"You do?"

"Yes. Harry told me about Kreacher… about how you all treated him kindly and how he changed… I agree with you, that house-elves deserve better than enslavement. That they should be respected."

"Oh, I wish I had S.P.E.W. badges! I got rid of them all when… well, I don't have any anymore, but when I make new ones, I'll be sure to give you one!"

"I can't wait," she grinned.

As dessert cleared from the tables, Professor McGonagall stood up one more, and the chatter began to die down throughout the Great Hall.

"Now that we are all fed, I would like to first introduce our new staff members," she announced, and proceeded to introduce a new Transfiguration professor, a new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, and a new Muggle Studies professor. "As you are all aware, this past May, the Hogwarts castle was home to a tragic battle in which lives were lost. However, this battle also put an end to a dreadful war. Last year, the school was under the control of dark arts. Many of you were subjected to things that nobody should ever have to face, especially while as a student at Hogwarts. We return here with the absolute certainty that this year will be better. None of you should have ever had to feel unsafe here. And I…" she trailed off, her voice sounding slightly pinched, and Ginny watched as she quickly reached up to wipe at her eyes. She shook her head, cleared her throat, and continued.

"And I shall do everything in my power to make sure that not a single one of you will feel unsafe at Hogwarts ever again.

"That being said, to ensure the well-being of those of you who were here last year, as well as to anybody who needs it, I have employed several trained witches and wizards to give weekly individual counseling sessions to any student who signs up. It is not mandatory, but strongly recommended. All you must do is speak with your Head of House. And for Gryffindors, since the Head of Gryffindor House has not yet been replaced, I will be continuing on the role until further notice."

McGonagall continued on, telling them the parts of the castle that were still off-limits due to damage, discussing the items that Filch had banned, and other usual start-of-term things. Once she had finished, there was the scraping of benches as students stood up to head towards their common rooms for the night.

"New Defense Against the Dark Arts professor?"

"Will undoubtedly be better than nearly all of the others we've had," Hermione said as she and Ginny walked with the other Gryffindors. "Transfiguration?"

"Eh. Not McGonagall, not interested."

"I'm glad she's still our Head of House! Even if it's just temporary."

"Me too," Ginny agreed as they reached the Fat Lady. As she crawled through the portrait hole, into the common room, she was suddenly struck with the memory of the last time she was there.

After the battle. Fred had just died. Harry, Ron, and Hermione were all asleep in the boy's dormitories. They were going to go back to the Burrow once they were awake, once everybody was ready. She had sat next to her mother, leaning against her, both of them too grief-stricken to cry any more. George was nowhere to be seen. They would later find him drunkenly wandering the deserted and destroyed hallways. Nobody would ask where he had gotten the Firewhiskey.

She remembered it all so clearly. She remembered every single thing that she was feelings. The tightness in her chest. The pit in her stomach. The burning and stinging of her eyes. The feeling of desperation for something that she wasn't even sure of. And the feeling of guilt for not being there when Fred died, for not being able to do anything for her mother or for George, for not being completely overjoyed that the war was over because she just wanted her brother back.

It all hit her at once, the memory and the feelings, and she gulped hard, looking around at the common room. _This_ common room. The one with the burning fire and the happy faces of students. Not the common room from after the battle with the tears and the grief. It was the same location, but it wasn't the same place. Not at all.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes," she assured Hermione. "Just tired. I'd really like to go to sleep."

"Me too," Hermione agreed. "It's been a long day."

 **…**

The memories kept haunting her. As Ginny lay in her four-poster bed in the girl's dormitory, she couldn't help but remember the last time she was in her bed at Hogwarts. The night before she left to go home for her Easter holiday. She didn't know that she wouldn't be returning. She had spent every single night thinking about Ron, Hermione, and Harry. She had wondered what they were doing, where they were, if they were okay, if they were still alive.

She eventually fell into a fitful sleep, and when she woke the next morning, she hardly felt rested at all.

 **…**

Ginny's head was pounding. She assumed it was because of her lack of rest. Either way, the first day of classes hadn't even begun yet and she was already miserable. She sat at the Gryffindor table with Hermione, staring down at her toast, willing herself to eat it.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Hermione asked for about the fifth time. "Maybe you should go see Madam Pomfrey."

"I'm fine," Ginny shook her head. "It's just a headache."

Professor McGonagall was handing out schedules to students a little ways away from them. Ginny was sincerely hoping that her schedule would give her a break in classes later just so that she could possibly take a nap and get rid of the ache in her head.

"Miss Weasley."

McGonagall had reached them. Ginny looked up at her.

"I expect that putting a Quidditch team together this year won't be an exceptionally easy task, but I do expect a Gryffindor win."

"I'll do my very best, Professor," Ginny smiled.

"As for your schedule, Miss Weasley, you've not signed up for counseling?"

"No, Professor."

"Is that intentional?"

"Yes, Professor," Ginny nodded, and McGonagall looked at her, studying her over the tops of her spectacles, and suddenly, Ginny felt very small.

"Have you thought it over?"

"Yes. Sort of."

"Miss Weasley, as I've already said before, it's not mandatory by any means, but… I would greatly urge you… with everything that… that you've… Well, I believe that it would be quite useful," she said. Ginny knew that McGonagall was being sincere, and she knew what she was really trying to say: that Ginny was the perfect candidate for counseling. Apparently, everybody thought so. And yet, she still felt the need to hold back, as if going to counseling was admitting some sort of weakness. She still felt very small, and also guilty.

"Okay," she gave in. "I'll do it."

"Very well then," McGonagall nodded, and she tapped a parchment with her wand, and then handed it to Ginny.

"Thank you," she said and looking down at her new schedule.

"Well, looks like we have a break today," said Hermione, having already looked over her own schedule. Ginny grimaced and let out a soft groan.

"I don't. I've got my first counseling session today. Potions, counseling, lunch, Transfiguration."

"Who've you got as your counselor?"

"S. Bellamy," she answered, reading from the parchment.

"Me too! Not for another two days, though."

"Lucky," Ginny grumbled.

It looked like she wasn't going to get her nap after all. She closed her eyes, her head still throbbing, and took a deep breath. Maybe she would go to Madam Pomfrey like Hermione had suggested. She didn't know how else her headache would go away.

 **…**

After Potions ended, Ginny split up from most of the other seventh years who had breaks between classes, and instead, walked through a crowded corridor towards the room where she would have her first counseling session. She was nervous. She didn't know what to expect. She didn't really want to go.

She opened the door to the room to find what looked like a small office. There was a desk with parchment, quills, and a few decorative items on top of it. Pictures hung in frames along the walls. Some of the pictures moved, but others stayed still. There was a comfortable-looking armchair in front of the desk. Behind the desk sat a woman, who Ginny guessed was S. Bellamy.

"Hi," S. Bellamy smiled at Ginny, and she glanced down at a piece of parchment on her desk. "Ginevra?"

"Ginny," she said, and she just stood there in the doorway, not sure what to do.

"Ginny, then. Hello. I'm Simone."

Her skin was pale and her hair was dark, brown locks pulled up into a messy bun, but several strands falling around her face. She wore very little makeup, and she looked quite young, but the fine lines around her eyes made Ginny think that she was probably older than she appeared.

"You can have a seat if you'd like. Get comfortable."

Ginny finally moved towards the desk, dropping her bag on the floor and sitting in the armchair in front of the desk.

"How has your first day of classes been so far?"

"Fine," Ginny shrugged, not looking at her.

"And you're in your seventh year, right?"

"Yeah."

"Before we begin anything, is there anything you'd like to know about what we'll be doing or anything like that?" Simone asked her. Ginny was staring at the walls, mostly at the non-moving pictures in frames, fixating on one picture in particular. It was unsettling to her. It was all black with two red hand prints and a name scratched across it in white.

"Who is Macbeth?" Ginny asked. Simone followed her gaze, and then looked back at her.

"Macbeth is the name of a play by William Shakespeare, about a Scottish man who is told by three witches that he will become king of Scotland, and so he goes to great lengths to achieve that," she explained. "The inclusion of witches in a muggle play intrigued me when I was younger. It was one of my favourite plays for a long time."

"Are you muggle-born?"

"I am."

"A lot of your pictures don't move," Ginny explained. "That's how I could tell."

"Observant."

Ginny didn't say anything else, and Simone was also quiet. Ginny stared down at her hands in her lap, feeling Simone's eyes upon her, not sure what to do.

"Professor McGonagall told me that you might have some difficulty at first, opening up, talking about things," Simone said.

"She did?" Ginny asked, looking up at her, almost startled to see her shockingly blue eyes looking straight at her.

"She did," she nodded. "Do you know why that might be?"

"No. I don't know," she shrugged.

"No idea at all?"

"Other than the fact that I don't know you?"

"Do you not often open up to people you don't know well?"

"No," Ginny said flatly.

"Why is that?"

Ginny was silent for a moment, weighing her options. She was already growing agitated with all of the questions. She did not understand how any of this would help her with anything at all.

"Because the last time I made the mistake of _opening up_ , I was possessed by You-Know-Who, got a bunch of people petrified, and woke up lying on the floor of the Chamber of Secrets. Ever since then, I've kind of been a little more careful about who I say things to."

Simone didn't show any signs of surprise. Either she had already known all of this, or she was just good at her job.

"So, you don't trust easily. And for what seems like a very good reason," she said. "So we will start slow. Build trust. Get to know each other. Does that sound okay to you?"

"Sure," she muttered.

"Is there anything you would like to know about me? Aside from the fact that I am muggle-born?"

Ginny took a slow breath in, and then let it out just as slowly. She didn't care about this woman at all. She didn't want to be here. But she was here. She had agreed to this. She wasn't about to back out now.

"I don't know, um. Did you go to school here?"

"No, I didn't. I went to Beauxbatons," she answered, and suddenly Ginny was able to pick up the slightest bit of a French accent. It was very subtle, nothing like Fleur's, but now that she was made aware, it was definitely there.

"You're French?"

"Yes."

"My brother's wife went to Beauxbatons."

"Did she? Are you and her very close?"

"No, not really," Ginny shook her head. "We get along fine, but we're not close."

"Do you have just the one brother?"

"No, I have six- five. I have five," she corrected herself quickly, and then realized that the conversation had somehow turned back to her. "What about you? Do you have siblings?"

"I also have brothers. Two. Twins. Younger than me," she answered. Ginny felt a pang in her chest at the mention of twin siblings. Of course Simone had twin brothers. Of course she did.

"I had twin brothers, too," Ginny said, picking at one of her fingernails, speaking casually. "Older than me, though. For now. Fred died, though, so I guess in a few years, he won't be older than me anymore. That's how that works, right? This is the kind of stuff I'm supposed to be saying, right? This is what I'm supposed to talk about?"

"When you're ready to discuss that, then yes, I would very much like for you to talk about it," she answered calmly.

"I just don't really understand the point of all of this. I'm sorry, you seem very nice, but I don't… I don't get it."

"The mind," Simone said after a brief silence, speaking slowly and deliberately, "is simultaneously the most resilient and the most delicate thing we each possess. It can go through hell and back and remain intact. But we need to take care of it because it won't always return in one piece. There might be a break. When we break a bone, we mend it. But when a piece of our mind breaks, we often ignore it. Because we can't see it. And maybe we don't even feel it. We can push it back into the very depths of our minds, but it's still there. And eventually, some way or another, it will show itself and it will hurt. The mind isn't as easy to mend as a broken bone or a cut in the skin. It is a long healing process. And sometimes the healing is just as painful, if not more so, than the break itself. But ultimately, I believe that to be at peace is worth the pain that it takes to get there."

"Are you saying that I'm not at peace?"

"Are you?"

"I don't know. I don't even know what that means."

"You seem like a very strong girl, Ginny. I would take a guess and say that you're the kind of person who doesn't like to show signs of weakness," Simone said.

"I'm not weak."

"Having weaknesses doesn't make you weak. It makes you human."

Ginny stared past her, at the wall, at the _Macbeth_ poster, not knowing what to say, so choosing to say nothing at all.

"My father was a psychologist," Simone said, seeming to realize that Ginny wasn't going to speak. "Which is a sort of Healer in the Muggle world, specifically for the mind. My mother was an actress, and that's what I wanted to be, too. But when I began at Beauxbatons, I learned about how much magic could do to help people, but was shocked to learn that there didn't seem to be much in terms of psychology or anything dealing with human mental illnesses. After all, mental illnesses affect people, regardless of whether they are a muggle or have magic. So much of Healing had to do with the physical, things that had been caused by an outside source and could be cured with spells and potions. When I was finishing up my final year of school, I was invited to take a position at St. Mungo's by a Healer who had also been working towards a better mental health system for wizards. It's come a long way since then. We don't call ourselves psychologists, much like Healers aren't called doctors. We're counselors and we want to help people when magic can't always do the full job."

"What kind of mental illnesses are there?" Ginny asked, wondering if maybe there was actually something wrong with her and if that something had a name.

"Many. The main ones that I'm looking out for most amongst the students are… anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression…."

"And magic can't fix any of those?"

"Magic can help. It can help a lot, actually. There are a lot of potions that can help people struggling with mental illnesses go about their day-to-day life. Sometimes mental illnesses never really go away. However, while I'm here doing counseling at Hogwarts, I hope to not use magical remedies, unless I believe it to be needed."

"So what will you do instead? Just talk?" Ginny asked.

"Yes," she answered simply. "A lot of traumas have been suffered by a lot of people, and so much suffering has been done in silence. And so, I am here to listen to people, to talk with them, to help them make sense of things that don't really make any sense at all. We don't have to be silent and we don't have to be alone."

Ginny looked at her. She seemed to be genuine, but Ginny still had reservations. She was reluctant. She was doubtful. She was stubborn.

"Does this sound like something that you want to try, or are you still missing the point of it all?" Simone asked her. Ginny was silent for a moment, trying to think it over.

"I don't know. Everyone keeps telling me that I should do this."

"Do you think there is a reason why?"

"Sure. A lot of shit has happened."

"And do you think that's a good enough reason to give it a shot?"

"I guess," she shrugged. "I don't know how easy it will be, though. For me to talk about things."

"That's okay," Simone assured her. "We don't have to jump right in to anything too heavy. We can start slow. Build trust, just like I said before."

"Right."

"So, let's start slow. I hear that you're the captain of the Gryffindor quidditch team?"

"Yeah, I am."

"How long have you been playing?"

Ginny began to talk. She talked about quidditch. It was simple, it was easy, it was almost enjoyable.

"Well, Ginny," Simone said, interrupting their discussion of the Quidditch World Cup from a few years earlier. "We've run out of time for today. Will you be returning next week?"

"Yes," Ginny nodded. "I will."

"Alright," she smiled. "See you then."


	5. Chapter 4

**A/N:** "I can't wait to update more often!" Kayla said, and then months and months passed before she posted another update.

Um... Oops? I know, I know, I know, enough with the excuses! I really am sorry about that long time of no updates. A lot was going on! New job, lots of overtime, Halloween (a very busy time for a seamstress), Thanksgiving (a very busy time for a hungry person), Christmas (a very busy time for a person obsessed with giving handmade gifts...). It just kind of got away from me. Am I going to promise that I won't let it happen again? No. I won't. But I WILL promise that I will try harder. And, to be totally, completely honest here... comments? They help me. They really, really do. I will never be the type of person who will complain about not getting comments because that's not my style, and I'm very grateful that people read this at all! But I will admit that leaving a comment (even a short one!) is a way of encouraging me to keep writing. I'm going to keep writing no matter what because I enjoy it, but! I really like comments because I like hearing about what you guys are liking, not liking, etc.! And it makes me excited to continue!

Anyways, I hope I haven't lost many of you in my long absence. If you are still here, thank you! I am going to try to be better. Promise.

* * *

"How do we already have this much homework? It hasn't even been a full week back yet," Ginny groaned, staring down at the parchment with only a few sentences jotted down onto it.

"Seventh year. N.E.W.T.S.," Hermione muttered without glancing away from her own parchment, scribbling down words furiously. Ginny set her quill down and brought her hands up to her eyes, rubbing them while stifling a yawn.

"Hey Ginny," came a voice next to her, and she looked up, blinking a few times, her vision slightly blurry from rubbing her eyes, to see a fourth-year whose name she didn't know. "I hear you're Quidditch captain this year. When are you gonna have try-outs?"

"It hasn't even been a full week back yet," she groaned again, letting out a long sigh. "I'm not sure. Soon."

The fourth-year seemed satisfied enough with that answer, and left Ginny and Hermione at their table in the common room.

"Are you okay?" Hermione asked, finally looking up from her homework. "You look exhausted."

"I haven't been sleeping very well," she admitted.

"Nightmares?" Hermione sounded concerned. Ginny shook her head.

"Not really. I mean, yeah, sometimes, but no worse than usual. I just can't fall asleep for ages, and then when I do, I can't stay asleep. And it's frustrating because I'm _so_ tired for some reason."

"Maybe you should see Madam Pomfrey, she suggested.

"Yeah, maybe," Ginny sighed, looking at her homework again. She could barely even remember what the assignment was. "I think I'm just going to finish this tomorrow."

"Are you sure? It's early to start getting behind…," Hermione warned.

"It's fine," Ginny assured her, rolling up her parchment and gathering her books. "I'm gonna try to get some sleep."

"Okay. Good luck!"

"Thanks," she smiled, and began to head towards the dormitories. She changed into her nightgown and laid in her four-poster bed, staring up, feeling extremely tired and wide awake at the same time.

She missed Harry. She missed him so much that her entire body ached from it. She knew that it would get easier. She had grown too used to being with him every day. It would get easier. But for now, she just wanted to be wrapped in his arms, smelling his scent - earthy and warm. She wanted to hear his voice and his laugh, and to see his face and his eyes, and to taste his mouth on hers.

"You're being pathetic," she said out loud to herself. She rolled onto her side, closing her eyes. Eventually, she fell into yet another night of fitful sleep, leaving her feeling just as exhausted as if she hadn't slept at all.

…

"I'm worried about holding Quidditch try-outs."

"Why is that?"

"I'm basically assembling a brand new team here. You know, it wouldn't be so awful if I only needed to fill a few spots, but it's the whole team. And then we have to actually be able to work as a team, and what if I pick people who play great at the try-outs, but don't work well with the rest of the team? What if I choose people who… who…," she trailed off.

"Are you worried that your captaincy may come into question if you don't assemble the very best team, even under difficult circumstances?" Simone asked her.

"Well...yeah."

It was Ginny's third visit to Simone. So far, they hadn't discussed anything too heavy, and Ginny was finding that she didn't mind talking to her. She was easy to talk to. She listened, she asked the right questions, and said the right things. Ginny understood that this was Simone's job and that she was very good at it. She still wasn't ready to open up about more serious things, and she wasn't sure when she would be, _if_ she would be, but she was finding that her counseling sessions were not as awful as she thought that they might be.

"Okay, say that your team isn't great. What is the worst case scenario?"

"We're rubbish. We lose every match. People are disappointed in me. And I don't…"

"You don't what?" Simone pried.

"I haven't really told anyone, but…," Ginny took a deep breath in. "I've been thinking about my future a lot, especially since I'm in my seventh year, and that's what we're supposed to do. But… I think I want to pursue Quidditch. Like, as a career. And I'm worried that if I choose a bad team, then it might ruin my chances of getting on a professional team next year. If I'm the captain of a rubbish school team, why would a professional team want me?"

"Your worries are valid," Simone told her. "Your concerns are about your future, which makes sense. But I think that you should take it one step at a time. First focus on building your team, and then focus on training them. You may find that you don't have anything to worry about, and if you do, then you can worry about it when the time comes."

"Yeah…," Ginny said.

"I know, it's much easier said than done," Simone said, and Ginny nodded in agreement. "But if you find even the slightest bit of success, I think that it will help."

"I just feel like I have so many more responsibilities now than I ever have before," Ginny admitted, speaking candidly for probably the first time since meeting Simone. "And I'm having a difficult time keeping up with everything."

"Are you feeling overwhelmed with your classes? Or is it more to do with things happening outside of your classes?"

"I don't know," she said. "Everything, I guess. Classes, quidditch, worrying about… everyone."

"Who are you worrying about?"

"My mom. My brother... . My brother, George, he… he's the one who lost his twin… I mentioned that once, I think…."

"Yes, you did," Simone nodded.

"But I don't want to talk about that," Ginny added quickly. "I don't want to talk about Fred yet."

"Okay. That's fine," Simone assured her. "Is there anyone else who you're worried about?"

"Harry," she said softly.

"Harry?"

"Yeah. My boyfriend."

"You hadn't mentioned a boyfriend."

"I know. I did that on purpose. I didn't think that I would want to talk about him."

"But you do?"

"I don't know. I don't know if I should."

"Why is that?"

"He's…," she paused, trying to figure out what she wanted to say. "I might feel badly talking about him to somebody that he doesn't know, because… because he's Harry Potter and he hardly has any privacy as it is, and… I don't know."

"Oh," Simone said, unable to hide her mild surprise for a brief second, but immediately returning to her professional self. Ginny pretended not to notice her surprise. "Are you concerned that by telling me things about him, it will be an invasion of his privacy and perhaps a betrayal of his trust?"

"Yes," Ginny said, surprised at how accurate she was and how easily she put it. "Exactly."

"Does he know that you are in counseling?" Simone asked her.

"Yes," she nodded. She had mentioned it in one of her last letters to him. He had responded, telling her that he thought that it was a good idea and that he was proud of her for going for it.

"Maybe you could ask him if it would be okay for you to talk about him during our sessions," she suggested. "That way, if you know that he doesn't mind, you will be able to speak freely knowing that you aren't breaking any sort of trust."

"He'll say that it's okay. I know that he will. That's just the kind of person that he is," Ginny said, smiling slightly. "But I would like to know for sure. Yeah. I'll do that."

…

 _Harry,_

 _I miss you. Have I said that enough lately? Have you grown tired of me saying it? Too bad, because I will probably say it again at least ten more times before the end of this letter. (I miss you! - Number two.)_

 _Have the other people at auror training calmed down around you at all yet? I don't know how you can handle that at all. If you've gone this long without hexing one of them yet, then I must say that you are a much stronger person than I could be. (Miss you! - Number three.) Although, I'm sure any one of them would be honoured to be hexed by you, so maybe that's not actually a very good idea._

 _Seventh year classes are exhausting. I would tell you that you're lucky that you didn't have to take seventh year classes but… circumstances… not great. If it wasn't for Hermione, I'm not sure how I would be surviving at all. I used to think that you and Ron were such leechers when it came getting Hermione's help with homework, but I take it back. I get it. I completely understand now. (Hey, I miss you! - Number four.) I'm holding quidditch try-outs soon. How in the world am I supposed to find a seeker that compares to you, Potter? You've really ruined me for other seekers, I must say._

 _Still waiting for news of a Hogsmeade trip. I can't remember when the first one usually is, but it feels like it should be around now, right? Or maybe I've just made that up because I miss you (number five!) and am anxious to see you again._

 _One last thing. You came up during my counseling session today, but I was hesitant to talk about you very much to somebody that you don't know but who obviously knows who you are. I know that you hardly get any privacy as it is, and as Simone put it, it would feel like I was invading your privacy and betraying your trust. She told me that I should ask you if it would be okay if I talked about you during sessions, that way I wouldn't feel guilty if I knew that you were okay with it. I would never reveal any of your secrets, of course, but you are a pretty important part of my life, and it's hard to talk about my life without talking about you._

 _I guess that's all. Hermione says hi. Give everyone my love._

 _I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you._

 _I am going to go throw up over how sappy I'm being._

 _I miss you._

 _Ginny._

…

As September rolled into October, it brought with it several days of heavy rain, which only let up for short periods of time for nearly two weeks. It also brought a wave of illness over the students that seemed to spread throughout most of the school within a matter of days. Madam Pomfrey was busy at work handing out remedies as fast as she could. Hermione was one of the unlucky ones who had fallen ill, missing an entire day's worth of classes, and Ginny had to struggle to do her homework on her own.

Ginny had scheduled quidditch try-outs in the thick of it all. She had reserved the quidditch pitch long in advance, and she wondered if she should reschedule, but she went ahead with it anyways, despite her doubts.

By the time she made it down to the quidditch pitch, she was already soaked from head to toe, completely out of breath, her insides squirming around uncomfortably. Thus far, she had evaded the sickness, and refused to fall victim to it now. A number of Gryffindors were already there, most of them looking miserable and wet.

"Listen up," Ginny called, once she was sure that everybody who was going to come was there. There was a surprisingly large turnout, despite the circumstances. "If you can impress me in this weather, then I have no doubts that I will want you on the team. I know this isn't exactly ideal, but conditions during matches won't always be ideal either. So just do your best, okay?"

"Why couldn't you just postpone try-outs?" a grumpy second-year girl called out over the sound of the pouring rain.

"Because this is when I scheduled them, so this is when we're doing them," Ginny replied, not even trying to suppress her agitation. "So, let's get to it."

It was abysmal. There were a few people who stood out, but for the most part, Ginny couldn't imagine wanting to put nearly any of them on her team. And as try-outs wore on, things seemed to be getting even worse.

"Okay, let's call it a day," Ginny announced once everybody had had a go. "I have a lot of thinking to do, and I'll let you know once I've made some decisions."

 _If_ she made any decisions. She had already resigned to the fact that she was going to need to hold a second day of try-outs. She knew she should have just postponed. It was all a waste of time. She watched as the others marched back up towards the castle, but she hung back, hardly feeling the drops of rain falling on her face. Her hands were entirely numb from cold, and her feet were beginning to sting from being in wet shoes for so long. She didn't care, though. An overwhelming feeling of sadness suddenly swept over her, and she had the strongest urge to cry. She fought it, though. She didn't know where it was coming from. Her head was pounding, and her eyes were burning, and seemingly out of nowhere, a sob escaped from her, and she was crying. She reached a hand to hastily wipe tears from her face, although it made no difference. Her entire face was wet, her hands were wet, wiping away tears was useless.

And then she was angry. Angry at herself for crying, angry at the weather, angry at everything that she could think of to be angry about. She forced herself to stop crying, squeezing her eyes shut to stop the tears. She took several deep breaths, and then began to trudge through the mud back to the castle. Even though she was freezing and numb, by the time she made it to the entrance, she felt hot, too hot, her heart thumping wildly against her chest, her stomach churning, and before she even made it inside, she knew that she was going to vomit.

She sprinted to the nearest girls' bathroom, throwing open the door, barely managing to close the stall door, and she fell onto her knees, and she threw up. Her nose was burning, her eyes were stinging, and her throat felt raw. She threw up again. A puddle formed on the floor from her wet clothes where she knelt.

The bathroom was empty aside from her, and she was grateful for that. She sat there, her forehead resting against the cool porcelain of the toilet, willing herself not to think of how unsanitary it was. She heard the indiscernible sound of voices growing louder, and they became clear as the bathroom door opened.

"It was so pointless," a girl was saying, and Ginny thought that she recognized the voice. "I don't understand why she didn't just postpone."

"I don't think I would even want to play for a captain who would do that," another voice replied. "Honestly, she kind of seems like a bitch."

"You know she's dating Harry Potter?"

"No way. _Her_? And _him_? _Together_?"

"Yeah. I know, right?" the girl said, her voice heavy with disgust. Ginny realized how she recognized the voice. It was the same girl who asked her why she hadn't postponed try-outs.

"How do you know?"

"Eliza said she saw them together on platform nine and three-quarters. Apparently a load of people did. Hugging and kissing…."

" _Gross_."

"Yeah. _And_ Eliza also told me that she heard that they dated a couple years ago, too. I think he ended up dumping her, though."

"Well, duh. Like she would dump him? Ha!"

"Right?" the girl laughed.

"But how did she manage to get him back?"

"Wouldn't be surprised if she used a love potion."

"Oh my gosh, she had to have. There's no other way!"

"He could do _so_ much better."

"He could have any girl he wants. Honestly. _Any_ girl. Why would he choose _her_?"

Ginny flushed the toilet, standing up, and exiting the stall. She watched as both girls noticed her reflection in the mirror, and froze, horrified looks on their faces. Ginny said nothing to them and she moved to the sink, washing her hands. The silence was thick and heavy, and as she turned off the sink, Ginny glanced towards them, both of them completely avoiding looking in her direction. There were a number of things that she wanted to say to them. She could feel the blood boiling inside of her. But she said nothing. She simply turned and left the bathroom in silence.

By the time she made it to the Gryffindor common room, most of her anger had subsided. She was still mildly upset, but she had calmed down a lot. She changed out of her wet robes and found Hermione sitting near the fire, working on homework.

"How were try-outs?" she asked when Ginny sat next to her.

"Shit," she said simply. Hermione frowned briefly, but then her lips raised into a small smile.

"Well, I know something that will make you feel better."

"What?" she asked, doubtful that anything could make her feel any better at all.

"Hogsmeade trip. Next weekend."

Ginny was wrong. She suddenly felt a lightness inside of a her, a giddy feeling, excitement. She grinned. She was going to see Harry. Soon.

"Have you already written Ron?"

"Yeah. I'm sure he'll pass the news along to Harry."

"Thanks. I do feel better now," Ginny smiled. And it was true. She didn't even feel sick anymore. The wave of nausea had passed, and as the common room fire began to warm her, she began to feel comfortable and relaxed. She would be seeing Harry soon. Everything was alright.

…

"It bothered me more than I wanted it to," Ginny sighed, looking down at her fingernails. "Obviously, I know that people are going to talk about me. Especially in relation to Harry. I know that. I've known that. I didn't think it would bother me, because I know that they… they don't know me, they don't know him, they don't know us together… But for some reason, when I heard them talking about me, it really, really bothered me. And I don't know why."

"Did you tell anyone else about what you overheard?" Simone asked. "Hermione?"

"No," Ginny shook her head. "I was going to… because I knew that she would kind of understand. But I didn't."

"I know that you like to keep a lot of things to yourself. I believe that you worry about burdening other people with your troubles if you show any signs of not keeping yourself completely together. But I also believe that your friendship with Hermione is strong, and that she can understand a lot of the things that you're dealing with."

Ginny nodded. She was right. Of course she was right.

"You are carrying around a lot. Your own worries and troubles, as well as the worries for the troubles of others."

Ginny nodded again. Earlier during the counseling session, she had told Simone that Harry had no problem with her discussing him. She had told her that she was worried about him, the way that she would find him sitting in a daze, how he slept with his wand close by, how he startled easily. She asked Simone about post-traumatic stress disorder. It sounded like him. Simone asked her if she was ready to discuss her worries for George, and subsequently, talk about Fred. She said no.

Ginny knew that they were nearing the end of their session. She felt the urge to say things, things that she knew that Simone wanted her to talk about, things that she knew that she needed to talk about, but like she had done in the previous session as well, she held back. She wasn't ready yet. She looked at Simone's walls, as she usually did when there was a moment of silence. And, as usual, her eyes landed on the unsettling poster with the red handprints and the white etching.

"Can you tell me more about Macbeth?" Ginny asked, having been curious for a while. Simone raised her eyebrows, showing slight surprise.

"What about it?"

"When you first told me about it, you said that… he goes to great lengths to become king," she said, her eyebrows furrowing. "What kind of great lengths?"

"He kills people," Simone told her without hesitation. Ginny nodded. That was what she had expected. "He and his wife. His wife, however, feels badly about it, especially after Macbeth kills children. You see, the Macbeths have recently lost a child. They are sad. They try to fill the emptiness in their lives with power, but it doesn't work."

"Does Macbeth feel badly about killing people?"

"Yes. At first. But I believe he loses the ability to feel anything at all. His main focus is power. He loses sight of anything else."

"Oh," Ginny frowned. "He doesn't feel… He wants to have the most power…. He sounds an awful lot like…."

"Yes," Simone nodded. "He does. Macbeth was much more human than he was, though. Although, in the end, they both met the same, very human fate."

"Sometimes death doesn't seem like it was enough," Ginny mumbled.

"What do you mean by that?" Simone asked.

"I don't know," Ginny said quickly. She felt Simone's eyes on her, but she didn't meet them. There was something about Simone's eyes, their slight bulge and bright blueness, kind and soothing. It was in that moment, as Ginny avoided looking at her, that she realized that she trusted her. She was comfortable with her. She'd had doubts that she ever would be at all, and now it had happened much sooner than she thought it would. Finally, she looked up at her.

"I want to be ready to talk about the war… But I don't think I am. I don't know when I will be."

"That's okay," Simone told her. "We will get there."

…

The rain finally died down. Ginny filled three spots on the Gryffindor quidditch team and scheduled another day of try-outs to fill the remaining spots. The week leading up to the first Hogsmeade trip went by excruciatingly slow. But finally, it arrived. The sun was out, the ground was dry, and only a slight chill hung in the air.

Ron and Harry had agreed to meet Hermione and Ginny at The Three Broomsticks, and the entire walk there, Hermione kept going on about how the boys had better not be late. Ginny laughed at her, though, and she couldn't help but notice that Hermione's hair looked exceptionally shiny, and she thought she even noticed a tiniest bit of mascara on her eyelashes.

"You look really pretty," Ginny told her.

"Oh," Hermione smiled shyly. "Thank you."

She spotted them as soon as they entered The Three Broomsticks. They were at a booth, seated, and Ron was saying something, and Harry was nodding along. There were four mugs of Butterbeer atop the table. She caught Harry's eye from across the room. He grinned. And then Ron turned, also seeing them.

Ginny wished that nobody else was around. She wanted nothing more than to kiss Harry in a way that she only would if they were completely alone. And as their arms wrapped around each other and she breathed in his scent, and felt his body against hers, she wanted every single bit of him. Their kiss was quick, a simple greeting, although it was full of the longing for more. They pulled away from each other. Hermione greeted Harry with a hug. Ginny nodded towards Ron.

"Ronald," she said.

"Ginevra," he returned, holding out his hand. "Nice to see you."

"Likewise," she said, grasping his hand and shaking it. They both laughed, and he pulled her in for a brief hug.

They sat. They drank their Butterbeers. People stared at them. They ignored them. Ginny and Hermione talked about school. Harry and Ron talked about auror training and home. After they had finished their Butterbeers, Ron and Hermione went off together, and Harry and Ginny walked along outside, hands clasped together.

"I like this," Ginny said, reaching a hand to touch Harry's jawline, the shadow of hair darker than she'd ever seen it.

"Yeah? It's mostly a result of laziness," he admitted with a laugh.

"It looks good on you," she told him.

"Well then, maybe I'll keep it."

They had walked pretty far along, out of the busy areas of Hogsmeade and into the less populated places. Harry stopped walking rather abruptly, and turned towards Ginny.

"What?"

"Nothing. I would just really like to properly kiss you, if that's okay."

"Absolutely."

And then his hand was on her face, and their lips were pressed together, and Ginny liked the way that his new facial hair felt against her skin. She wanted to know what it felt like other places, against her breasts, between her legs. Her hands gripped at his arms, holding him as close to her as she could. His hands were in her hair, his tongue in her mouth, and there was an all-consuming, uncontrollable passion there, making them oblivious to the world around them, and it didn't even bother Ginny that they were out in the open, where anyone might pass by them. There was a steady throbbing between her legs, and she wanted him more than she could remember ever wanting him before.

"Can we go somewhere?" she asked, speaking softly, her mouth close to his ear. She was able to see that they were still alone, the nearest people off a fair distance away.

"Where?"

"I don't know. Somewhere private. Somewhere where you can fuck me."

"Whoa," Harry muttered, moving away so that he could look at her, and she could see a perfect mixture of shock and arousal on his face.

"Too forward?" she asked, a laugh playing at her lips.

"I will probably replay that in my mind every night that I'm alone for the next… forever."

"Oh, really?" she smiled. "What do you usually think about when you're alone at night?"

"You," he said, running a hand along her spine.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"What about me?" she urged.

"Your mouth. Your body. Touching you," he said, his voice reduced to a whisper, and they were still pressed together, and Ginny could feel him becoming aroused.

"I want you to touch me."

"Ginny… We're outside. In public."

"I know," Ginny nodded. "I don't mean right here. Somewhere else. I'm just. Fuck, Harry, I've been so fucking horny lately. Like, uncontrollably. I'm about to start dry-humping you right here, that's how horny I am."

"Are you trying to make me really hard right now? Because it's working."

"Let's go the the Shrieking Shack. We can be alone," Ginny suggested, but Harry shook his head rather vigorously.

"I don't want to go there."

"But it's close! And nobody else will be there!"

"Ginny, I don't want to go there," he said firmly.

"Okay," she frowned, loosening her grip on him.

"I don't have very good memories there," he explained quietly. "And I just… I don't want to be there."

"Okay," she said again. There was nowhere for them to go to be alone. She knew that. She sighed. "We're not going to be able to have sex again until I'm home for Christmas, will we?"

Harry groaned, grimacing. "But that's so long from now."

"Look at what you've done to me, Potter. The thought of a few months without having sex with you has me in a state a desperation."

"Oh, I did that to you, did I?" he laughed.

"Yes, you did. It's all your fault," she smiled, leaning in again to kiss him quickly. "We should probably move along before I just take all of my clothes off right here."

"I wouldn't stop you," Harry shrugged, pulling away from her and taking hold of her hand again as they continued their walk. She grinned, looking at Harry as they walked. She thought back to her last counseling session, when she asked Simone about post-traumatic stress disorder, and she thought of how Harry might be dealing with that.

"Are you doing okay?" she asked him suddenly. "I mean like… with everything? Have you been doing okay?"

He glanced at her, looking somewhat confused. "Yeah," he nodded. "I'm fine."

"Okay," she said. She wanted to tell him that she could be there for him if it he wasn't, that she would listen to anything that he needed to say, but she didn't know how. So she fell silent as they walked, and she just enjoyed the feeling of her hand in his, of having him close to her. Harry stopped, gazing out in front of him. Ginny hadn't really noticed where they were headed, and she doubted that Harry did, either. The Shrieking Shack was in front of them.

"That's where Snape died," Harry said, finally answering her unasked question.

"Oh."

"I hate how clearly I remember it," he admitted.

"He wasn't a good person, Harry," Ginny said softly.

"He didn't deserve to die."

Ginny said nothing. He looked at her.

"He didn't," he repeated.

"I didn't say that he did," she said. "But he wasn't a good person."

"He did good things."

"He treated you like rubbish for seven years," Ginny reminded him.

"He also kept me safe," Harry said.

"Not because he wanted to," Ginny said. He had told her bits of what he had seen from Snape's memories. "He had an obsession with your mother, disrespected her decision to be with someone other than him, and took out his frustrations on you, who had nothing to do with anything. And because he felt like he had some kind of obligation to the woman who didn't love him, he made sure you weren't murdered. Any decent person would make sure than an innocent kid wasn't murdered, but he did it because of your mum. Not because he was a decent person. Because he wasn't, Harry. He wasn't a decent person."

He stared at her. She hadn't voiced her opinions on the matter when Harry first told her, but so much of it had bothered her. She disliked Snape. She always had, and she was sure that she always would. Nothing would change that.

"If he hadn't been headmaster last year, though, if it had been a real Death Eater-"

"A _real_ Death Eater? As far as I'm concerned, Snape _was_ a real Death Eater. I don't care which side he was actually on, he was still a Death Eater. He allowed them to be in our school, to, to -"

"He _had_ to. It would have looked awfully suspicious if he was like 'oh, no, actually, Voldemort, I'm just gonna keep the same staff.' But he still protected-"

"Don't you dare say that he protected the school or the students," Ginny interjected, feeling anger rising inside of her. She didn't want to be getting angry with Harry. She didn't want to be arguing with him at all, let alone arguing over Severus Snape. But she couldn't control it. She was getting angry.

"But he did! I mean, when you, Luna, and Neville tried to steal the sword of Gryffindor from his office? Can you even imagine what sort of punishment you may have gotten if he was truly on their side?"

She glared at him, mouth slightly open in disbelief. For a moment, Harry looked almost afraid of her. And for a moment, she wanted him to be afraid of her.

"You weren't here," she said, speaking slowly, dangerously. "You don't know what it was like to be here with _him_ in charge."

"You're right. I don't. I was just off, having a nice holiday in the woods, searching for bits of Voldemort's soul," Harry retorted.

"That's not fair," Ginny growled, turning her head quickly, looking away from him, her hair swinging around her shoulders. Her face burned and her heart was pounding, and she was so, so mad, and she knew that she was angrier than she should have been, but there was nothing she could do about it. She began to grow angry with herself for being so angry. They were silent. After what felt like several minutes of silence, Ginny wanted to apologize. But she didn't. She wouldn't be the first one to break the silence and she wouldn't be the first one to apologize. She hadn't looked at Harry at all, but she felt him beside her, growing increasingly fidgety. She was about to give in and say something, but just as she began to open her mouth, she heard Harry's voice.

"I'm sorry," he said, and finally she turned back to him.

"Me too."

"It's just still really confusing," he told her. "A lot of things are…"

Ginny nodded. That much, she could understand. And then, out of nowhere, she had the sudden urge to cry.

"I don't like arguing with you," she said, and her voice cracked just slightly, but noticeable enough for Harry's expression to soften, his eyebrows furrowing together.

"Ginny, are you okay?" he asked her, concerned, and she nodded, her eyes uncomfortably wet, but no tears falling quite yet.

"This keeps happening!" she exclaimed. "I will just randomly feel like crying. I think it has to do with counseling… you know… like, talking about feelings is making me… express feelings?"

"Well, that's okay," Harry assured her.

"No it's not!" she shook her head. "I don't like crying! What are you laughing about?!"

"Nothing! Nothing. I'm sorry. You're just really cute. Come here," he said, holding his arms out, and she fell into them, still fighting back tears. He placed a kiss on her forehead, and she sniffled, the urge to cry slowly dying away.

"I don't like arguing with you, either, by the way," Harry told her softly.

"Let's not do it."

"Okay. We won't."

"Okay," Ginny smiled. "Good."

…

Ginny stared down at her hands, picking at her fingernails, not sure what to say. It was the longest silence she had had in Simone's since her first visit. The greeting was brief. Simone asked her a question. Ginny gave a one-word answer. And then they were silent.

"You're awfully quiet today," Simone finally said.

"Yeah," Ginny agreed.

"Is there any reason?"

"No," she shook her head. More silence followed. Ginny looked up. Simone was watching her. Ginny took a few deep breaths.

"I think I'm ready," she told Simone, and then nodded as if to assure herself. "Yeah."

"You're ready?"

"I'm ready to talk about the war."


	6. Chapter 5

**A/N:** So, I'm not _entirely_ sure when this story hit/passed 100 followers, but I just noticed it the other day and it made me so excited! And so happy! And! Wow! Wow! That is incredible. Like, really really incredible. Thank you, guys! I would be happy to just have like, 5 people reading this, but 100+ followers?!

Anyways. Thank you for following, thank you for reading, thank you for the reviews! And look! Look! It only took me a week to post a new chapter! And I'm going to shut up now because there is likely going to be a longer author's note on the next chapter for... reasons. Okay. Again, thank you for reading! It means the world to me!

* * *

"I don't know where to start."

"That's okay. Take your time. We don't have to dissect anything right away. You can just say what comes to mind."

"There are parts that are so clear, and then there are parts that seem… faded, I guess. But not really. Because if I think about them hard enough, they come back, just as clear as everything else… But I don't let myself think about them, so they get fuzzy, because I've made them that way…. Does that make sense?"

"It does," Simone nodded.

"It's happened before. When I was younger," Ginny admitted.

"Did it have anything to do with what happened to you during your first year here?" Simone asked, and Ginny nodded. "Why don't you tell me about that?"

"When I was eleven, I was possessed by a memory of You-Know-Who," Ginny began. She stopped, almost impulsively, feeling strange talking openly about something that she didn't even like to think about. But she glanced at Simone, and without saying a word, with only a gentle raise of her eyebrows, she urged Ginny forward.

"And I set a basilisk loose on the school. People were petrified. The Chamber of Secrets was opened. The school was almost shut down. And I… I… I almost died. But that was never what really haunted me. For a really long time, I wished…," she trailed off, and shook her head, not wanting to continue with that particular train of thought. But Simone was looking at her, her eyes boring into her.

"What did you wish?" she asked.

"I wished," she started again, and took a shaky breath. "I wished that Harry had been too late to save me. You know, that he still managed to get rid of all the bad stuff, but that I didn't make it…. But I lived. And I had to live with what I had done. I still have to live with that. And for a really long time, I didn't want to live with it. I didn't want to be alive because I didn't want to live with it."

"And how did you deal with those feelings?"

"I never tried to off myself, if that's what you mean," Ginny told her. "I thought about it a lot… Not necessarily offing myself, just not wanting to _be_ there. I remember I kept thinking to myself 'I don't want to be here anymore', but I wasn't sure where _here_ even was. I wasn't even twelve years old yet and it was hard to comprehend what I was feeling. I just knew that I felt guilty for everything. People kept telling me that it wasn't my fault, but I didn't believe them. I knew that I was somehow responsible. Because of everyone in the school, it was _me_ who did it. Nobody died. Nobody died because of what I did, and I was grateful, but I was still responsible for a lot of shit. And the thought of having been possessed by You-Know-Who made me… I felt… _tainted_. My body hadn't been my own and it had been polluted and I wasn't sure if it would ever feel like mine again."

Simone had an elbow on her desk, her chin in her hand, fingers splayed across her bottom lip, and she had her eyes on Ginny, eyebrows knitted closely together, and she nodded as Ginny spoke, listening intently. She didn't interrupt. She let Ginny speak, and Ginny spoke without looking directly at her, because it was easier if she didn't look directly at her. It was easier if she just spat it all out without thinking about it too much, without formulating every word, without worrying about what Simone might think or say.

"Eventually, I… felt better. I don't know if I have ever fully… I mean, I don't think that's something that you _can_ fully get over? It's always going to be something that happened to me, it's always going to be there, but I eventually stopped wishing that I had died. I was happy that I was alive. I was glad that Harry had saved me. I had such a crush on him, you know? From the moment I first saw him, when I was ten, and Ron was going to Hogwarts for the first time, and Harry was there, and he was alone, and I remember seeing him and thinking that he was the cutest boy I had ever seen. I hadn't really even noticed boys up until that moment, but when I saw him...I noticed," Ginny said, and she smiled at the memory. Simone smiled, too.

"When did you two begin to date?" she asked.

"Not for a long time after that. I was too nervous around him to even speak in full sentences. But he was my brother's best friend. He stayed with us for a while every summer after Ron's first year. I was nothing more than Ron's little sister to him, though. And I knew that. I was able to start talking around him, though… I dated other boys. Towards the end of fifth year, though… he kissed me. And we dated. But then… that was when…," she frowned, thinking back to the end of her fifth year.

"When what?"

"Dumbledore died. He broke up with me after Dumbledore's funeral. It didn't surprise me. In fact, I think a part of me even expected it. I knew what he had to do. None of it really seemed real until he was gone, though," she said, and she could feel her heart beating inside of her chest. It wasn't any faster than normal, but it seemed to be pounding harder, and she was so incredibly aware of it. She continued to talk.

"My brother's wedding… that was the last time I saw Harry until I saw him here, the day the war ended. And he was disguised, so I barely really even saw him. But there was… chaos. Absolute chaos. And then they were gone. Harry, Ron, and Hermione were gone. My boyfriend, my brother, and my best friend. They left because they had to, and they wouldn't tell us anything - _couldn't_ tell us anything. Every day that passed that I didn't hear about them was good, because it meant that they were still alive. I was certain that if Harry was dead, everybody would know. Every day, I hoped for no news. But sitting there, waiting for nothing wasn't doing any good. Not here, not when the school was full of Death Eaters, and we were just stuck. I thought about Harry and how, during that year after You-Know-Who had returned, but nobody believed him, he never backed down, not even for a moment. I admired him for that. And I knew that I had to be like that. And I wasn't alone. But we got in trouble. A lot. And the Carrows, they… well, they got pretty bored of me pretty quickly. I didn't struggle, I didn't scream, if I could help it. I just… took whatever punishment they gave me. I could handle it. But the younger kids… It wasn't fair. And no matter what, it seemed like I wasn't doing enough. I kept thinking that there was so much more that I needed to be doing, but I didn't know _what_! But I know that there was so much more that I could have done!"

She was growing upset. She had tried so hard to push certain memories of her previous year at Hogwarts out of her mind. But it was all rushing back to her.

"It sounds to me like you did what you could without getting into even more trouble," Simone told her in a steady, soothing voice.

"I just felt so _helpless_ ," Ginny admitted. "The entire time… everything… I felt helpless. I wanted to be doing more. And maybe I would have, if I had come back after Easter break. But I didn't come back. I didn't come back until… until it all happened."

"The battle?" Simone asked. Ginny nodded. Her mouth felt dry from speaking so much with hardly a pause. She was nervous to continue. This was what she had been avoiding since she had started counseling.

"It all happened so fast," she said quietly. "It was like, one minute, we were just waiting… and then it was happening. And...my mum didn't want me to be there at all. But there was no way that I couldn't be there. I had to be. I had never seen anybody die before. But I saw people die. The first time it happened, it was… it wasn't even anybody that I knew. But they were standing there, alive, and then… then they were dead. I didn't even know the person, but I don't know if I'll ever get their face out of my head. I knew that we were in a battle in a war, and people had been dying - I had known people who had died already, but I hadn't seen a death in front of me until then. It made it all seem way too real. That's when it hit me that it was all really happening. And any one of us could just be standing there alive, and then be dead. My entire family was there. My mum, my dad, and all of my brothers. I knew that the odds weren't great that we would all make it out alive. But I was really hopeful.

"I wasn't there when Fred died. I didn't see it happen. So much happened between the start of the battle and Fred's death, but I can hardly remember any of it. It's just bit and pieces. If I think hard enough, I can remember it, but… when I found out about Fred, everything else that happened… didn't matter anymore. Because my brother died."

Ginny furrowed her eyebrows, frowning, churning the sentence over and over again in her mind.

"My brother died," she repeated, the words sounding foreign as they left her mouth. "He was so full of life. It didn't make sense. Sometimes it still doesn't make any sense. He was young and funny and he was becoming so successful, and there was still so much left for him to do. My whole life, he has been there. I love my brothers. All of them. I don't know who I would be if I didn't have them all in my life growing up. And now Fred is just… he's just gone. He's gone, and I'm never going to see him again and I didn't get to say goodbye, I didn't tell him that I love him, I don't even remember the last time I told him that I loved him, but I did. He was my brother and I loved him and now he's gone."

It was hitting her like it hadn't hit her since it had happened, and it was hitting her in a much different way. When it happened, she mostly felt shocked and there was so much else going on, she was mourning multiple deaths at one time, she hardly had a chance to fully process everything. And then she started pushing it away, not letting herself think about it, not letting herself feel anything, just trying to be as strong as she possibly could.

But she was feeling it. It was as if all of the pain she had been pushing away was coming back all at once in full force. And it was crushing her.

She was crying. It happened without any warning. It all came at once, and there was no way to hold back. She was crying in a way that she couldn't remember ever crying before. Her entire body shook, and noises escaped from her mouth, and she felt her tears streaking down her cheeks, all the way down to her neck. She could barely even speak. She tried, but everything she attempted to say came out in fragments until eventually, she gave up. The only thing she could do was sit there and let out everything that she had been holding in for so long. A box of tissues appeared on Simone's desk, in front of Ginny, and other than that, Simone did nothing else, but allowed Ginny to cry.

She was crying for herself, because her brother had died and she missed him terribly and was still having a hard time imagining life without him.

She was crying for her mother, because she had lost a son. She remembered the way that her mother had cried that night. It was something that she wished she had never seen or heard, because it cut into her. She never wanted to witness her mother crying like that ever again.

She was crying for George, because he had lost his brother, his twin, his best friend. For her entire life, she had barely ever seen one without the other. The concept seemed strange to her. She knew that George had lost a part of himself when he lost Fred.

She explained this to Simone later, once her breathing had steadied and her voice began to work again. She was still crying. There was nothing she could do to stop the steady flow of tears falling from her eyes.

There was still so much more that she wanted to say. So much more that she needed to say. But her time with Simone was already running out for the day. She wasn't sure if she could make herself so vulnerable again in a week's time. She was worried that this would be her only time to get everything out.

She told Simone this.

"I have another hour before my next appointment," Simone said. "If you have a class after this, I am willing to write you a note to excuse you for being late or missing it."

"I just have lunch. And I already know that I won't be eating."

"Then we can extend past our usual time."

Ginny nodded, her body still trembling, her face still wet.

"There was an hour during the battle… when it all stopped. You-Know-Who wanted Harry to come to him, told him that if he didn't come to him within that hour, then he would get him himself. I was in the Great Hall with my family… we were with Fred. I had already been told that Lupin hadn't made it… but I didn't know about Tonks until I saw her," her voice was breaking, she struggled to keep speaking. "Ron and Hermione showed up, but I didn't see Harry at all. Hermione said that he'd been right there, with them, but then he was gone. And I know we were all thinking the same thing. He was going to give himself up to him. I didn't want to believe it, but I knew already that it was true."

She sniffled, wiping at her eyes, even though it was pointless. Her tears hadn't stopped.

"Ron told me to stay where I was, but when he and Hermione left, it was so easy to just leave unnoticed. So I did. But there was a girl… there was this girl, and she was alone, and she was hurt and crying and I had to help her. I couldn't just leave her there. And… I remember feeling like somebody was watching me. You know how you can feel that sometimes? I think I had convinced myself that I would be the one to find Harry, to stop him from going to You-Know-Who. I was so sure that I would find him and keep him with me and he would listen to me because… I don't know. When I felt like someone was there, I thought it was him. I don't know why. There was nobody there at all. I wanted him to be there. I wanted to stop him. When You-Know-Who announced that he was dead… I didn't want to believe it, but I knew that it was true."

She remembered it all so clearly. It was the scene that had been haunting her dreams for months. She remembered seeing him, lifeless and limp in Hagrid's arms, and the feeling that her entire body was being torn apart from the inside-out. She remembered the way that the world seemed to float away from her and for a second, she was weightless, everything gone, in complete silence. But she came back and the light was too bright, the sounds were too loud, and her body seemed too heavy to support on her own. She remembered hearing the sound of her own voice, screaming, and the burning in her throat, but she couldn't remember actually screaming. But she heard it and she felt it, and she was moving forward, somehow, even though she didn't seem to be in control of her own body, but then she was stopped, somebody's arms had wrapped around her, holding her back, and she had struggled until she couldn't struggle anymore. And then she stopped.

"The world seemed to stop," Ginny mumbled. "It stopped. And then when it came back, everything was too fast. Everything was moving too fast."

"How do you mean?"

"It was just… I don't know if I was fully there, because when I think about it, everything seems sped-up, like… my dad has a thing for muggle stuff, and one time he brought home this thing that played… they were these funny little black rectangles, and they had pictures that moved and talked, but not like paintings, because they only ever moved and talked in the exact same way every time…"

"A video?" Simone asked.

"Something like that. And there was a button, and when you pressed it, everything went by really really fast. You know what I mean?"

"I do," she nodded, and Ginny was grateful that Simone was muggle-born, because she knew that she was doing a poor job of explaining the thing.

"Well, that's what it's like. When I think about what happened, it's like I've pressed that button and I'm watching it on a screen. Neville killed the snake. Everybody was fighting somebody. I remember fighting Bellatrix Lestrange… And then my mum… I saw my mum kill her. _My mum_ killed Bellatrix Lestrange. And then there was Harry… alive. But that's when everything slows down again. Harry was alive. I didn't really understand it, but he was alive. But so was You-Know-Who, and it was one or the other, and I couldn't bear the thought of losing Harry again. I felt like I had already lost him so many times. Obviously, you know the outcome. I was so scared, though. I just remember them circling around each other, and I just kept thinking that I couldn't lose him again. During the summer when I would fall asleep in his bed, I would wake up in the middle of the night and check to make sure that he was still breathing and that his heart was still beating. It doesn't make any sense. It's all over now. But he _was_ dead, and sometimes I'm scared that none of this is real."

By the time that her extra hour with Simone had passed, Ginny felt completely exhausted, both physically and mentally. She felt like she had run a marathon and had been awake for three days straight. Her muscles ached. Her limbs felt too heavy. Her eyes burned. And when she left, the thought of going to class soon seemed completely illogical. The only place that she wanted to be was in her bed. So that was where she went.

The girl's dormitory was empty. Ginny got into her four-poster bed, pulled the blanket all the way over her, covering herself completely, and she closed her eyes. A few remaining tears fell onto her pillow, and she took a deep shaky breath. Hadn't she done enough crying already? But it was like a dam had been broken. She had opened up a part of herself that she had kept closed for so long, and now she wasn't able to close it again. She cried. Silently, her face buried in her pillow. She wasn't entirely sure what she was crying about, but she no longer needed a reason. She just cried until she fell asleep.

 **. . .**

"Ginny? Ginny, are you okay?"

"Hmph?"

"You weren't at lunch or in class."

"Ngh."

"Is everything okay?"

"Fine. Tired."

"Okay."

She fell back to sleep. She didn't wake up at all. There were no dreams. She just slept.

"Ginny?"

She opened her eyes. Hermione was beside her bed. There was light streaming in through the windows. It was morning.

"I'm not going to classes today," Ginny said, deciding it on the spot. She was sure that Hermione was going to argue. But she didn't.

"Do you want me to stop by Simone's office so I can have her write a note for you?" is what she asked.

Ginny nodded. Hermione left. She went back to sleep.

Ginny stayed in bed until the next morning. She mostly slept, but she woke up every now and then, for no more than an hour at a time. When the next morning arrived, though, she finally felt as though she had slept enough. It was something she hadn't felt in ages. She knew that the breakthrough with Simone had something to do with it. She felt refreshed. She felt lighter. She sat up in her bed and was met with a sudden dull pounding in her head, a wave of dizziness, and a rush of nausea coming over her.

She immediately fell back down onto her pillow. Hermione was nearby, and noticed.

"Hey. Are you okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I think I've been asleep for too long and my body is unhappy with me," she frowned. Hermione smiled.

"I think you needed that sleep, though," she told her.

"I do feel better," Ginny admitted, sitting up again, this time more slowly.

"That's good. Don't you have quidditch try-outs again tonight?"

"Oh, yeah! That is tonight, isn't it?"

"I'm going to the library before breakfast to work on the essay due for Slughorn next week. Do you want to come?"

"Is there anything due in Defense Against the Dark Arts today?"

"Yes," Hermione nodded. "I will have mine with me in the library…."

"You're the best, Hermione," Ginny smiled.

…

The second day of quidditch try-outs was drastically better than the first. Ginny had options, and was confident in the team that she finally decided on, a day later. Even though she had slept for more than a day straight, Ginny still felt extremely tired. And the feeling of lightness after her long slumber didn't seem to last more than a few hours. She had finally opened up about some of her experiences and feelings, but now she had to deal with them, and she wasn't sure how. And that was on top of classes and schoolwork, and it didn't take long for her to feel overwhelmed again.

But she had quidditch now, and even though it was another thing that she had to make time for, practice was a welcome distraction from everything else.

Ginny sat at a table in the library with Hermione and Luna, all of them working on homework. Ginny was having a hard time focusing, though. The scratching of quills on parchment irritated her, and the smell of the old book that Hermione had propped open next to her was making Ginny feel ill. She rested her forehead on her hand, closing her eyes. She was already behind on homework. But she couldn't concentrate.

"Ginny," Hermione said. Ginny groaned and looked at her. Hermione frowned, concern etched across her face.

"I'm fine," Ginny mumbled, answering the question that she knew was coming next. "Just tired."

"Do you have trouble sleeping, too?" Luna asked, her voice casual and light, like usual.

"Sometimes. Yeah," she nodded.

"Me too. Yesterday I fell asleep while working on an essay that was due for Professor Flitwick today. My face smudged the ink. I was able to fix that, though. But it wasn't a very good essay. I don't expect that I'll receive very high marks on it," she sighed.

"How long have you had trouble sleeping?" Ginny asked her.

"Oh, ever since the Death Eaters took me," she said as easily as if they were discussing the weather. "Anyways. I think I'm done working for now. I'd like to stop by the kitchens before I go to bed. It's been ages since I've been in to say hello to the elves."

With that, Luna rolled up her parchment and collected her books. They said their goodbyes, and then she left. Hermione turned to Ginny.

"Ginny, I'm worried that you're depressed," she said, seemingly out of nowhere.

"What?" Ginny asked, and Hermione was looking at her, and Ginny looked back. She could tell from the determined expression on her face that Hermione had been wanting to say this for a while.

"First you couldn't sleep at all, now you can't get _enough_ sleep, and you just seem very distracted and your moods change so quickly, and… I'm worried about you is all," she ended, her voice small and tentative. Ginny's mouth hung open.

"Maybe… Maybe I am," Ginny admitted. "I don't know. Simone and I are working through things, though. I don't know what more I can do."

"Maybe you should see Simone more than once a week," Hermione suggested. But Ginny shook her head.

"I don't have time," she said. "I barely have time for once a week as it is. If I didn't actually find it helpful, I probably wouldn't even go."

"But-"

"Hermione," she cut her off. "If I _am_ depressed then… I'll deal with it once a week. That's all I can do."

"Okay," she replied weakly.

"I'm tired. I'm going to bed."

…

Halloween was approaching. The day before Halloween, Professor Slughorn had given them an exceptionally difficult potion to brew during class. Hermione was beside Ginny, muttering wildly under her breath as she changed the temperature of her cauldron, stirred counterclockwise seventeen and a half times, and added ingredients at precise times. Ginny already knew that her own potion was doomed. Her book told her that at the point she was at, the liquid inside her cauldron should be a pale blue. There _were_ chunks of pale blue. But it was mostly a murky brown. And it wasn't supposed to have any chunks at all.

On the other side of the room, somebody's potion was coming along worse than Ginny's. There was a loud _pop_ followed by an unpleasant odor that filled the entire dungeon within seconds.

"Oh dear, oh dear," Professor Slughorn muttered, hurrying over to where it had happened.

"Ugh," Hermione groaned, covering her nose with her free hand, continuing to stir her potion. Ginny, however, stopped what she was doing completely. As soon as the smell hit her - something like rotted eggs and burning hair - she could feel the vomit rising in her throat. She didn't even have time to turn and run to a bathroom. With hardly any warning at all, she threw up, right there, into her cauldron, her mess of a potion splattering out the sides. The noises of disgust that were directed at the foul odor were now being directed at Ginny, and her face burned, and she longed to be anywhere else.

"Oh dear," Professor Slughorn said yet again, having noticed what had happened.

Hermione had stopped stirring. She was staring at Ginny. Ginny pretended not to notice.

"Don't worry. Miss Weasley. I won't grade this particular potion," Slughorn said.

"I'm sorry, I'm not feeling well," Ginny mumbled. "May I please be excused to go to the hospital wing?"

"Yes, yes, of course."

Her cauldron was cleared. She collected her things and didn't meet Hermione's eye as she left the classroom.

She didn't go to the hospital wing, though. She had never planned to. She just wanted to leave the class as fast as she could. She went to the girls bathroom. She felt like she might throw up again. She sat down on top of a lidded toilet seat, hunched over, cradling her head in her hands. She sat that way until the feeling passed. She heard movement outside the bathroom and she knew that classes were over. She had her counseling session next, but she had no desire to go. She knew that she should, especially after Hermione had voiced her concerns about her, but she didn't want to.

She went anyways. She was fifteen minutes late.

"I threw up in Potions," Ginny explained.

"Are you sick?"

"No. Somebody did something wrong, it smelled really bad, and I threw up. Everyone else was fine, but _I_ threw up. Pretty embarrassing. We're probably going to have to spend the next month getting me through it," she joked, and Simone laughed softly.

"Hermione thinks I'm depressed," Ginny said, diving right into a new subject.

"Did she tell you that?"

"Yeah. She said she's worried about me. I appreciate it, I do, but…."

"Do you think you're depressed?"

"I don't know. Do _you_?"

"I think it's a likely possibility," Simone told her. Ginny sighed.

"Hermione is always right about everything."

…

"Ginny, can I talk to you in private?"

"I'm sorry, Hermione, I really can't. I'm behind on homework and I have quidditch practice tonight."

"It's important, though!"

"It'll have to wait. I'm sorry," Ginny said, brushing past Hermione towards the portrait hole in the common room, heading to the library alone. She was avoiding Hermione. She was certain that she was going to ask her if she had arranged to see Simone more than once a week. She hadn't. She didn't think that she would. She simply didn't have the time for it.

She worked on her homework alone, and then went to the quidditch pitch for practice. When practice was finished, she went straight to bed.

…

Ginny was in a better mood than usual. She'd had a really good quidditch practice, she had made progress on her homework and was nearly caught up, and Yitzhak brought her a letter from Harry the morning of Halloween. She smiled, reading the letter, allowing Yitzhak to drink from her goblet.

"Look, Harry's sent photos of Teddy," Ginny said to Hermione, showing her the two photographs that had come with Harry's letter. One of them showed Harry laughing while holding a squirming and clapping blue-haired baby on his lap. Hermione smiled.

"He's really good with him," she said, glancing at Ginny, who just nodded.

"Yeah, he is."

"Ginny…," Hermione said, but she was interrupted by one of Ginny's quidditch teammates, a sixth-year boy named Sebastian.

"Hey, captain!" he said, and Ginny looked away from Hermione as he began to talk about something he wanted to try during the next practice. By the time he left, breakfast was ending and it was time to go to class.

…

"I love the Halloween Feast. I think it's my favourite feast of the year," Luna said as she walked with Hermione and Ginny towards the Great Hall.

"As much as I love the feasts, I can't help but think about all of the work that the house elves are doing," Hermione commented. Ginny tuned the conversation out. She wanted to stop walking and sit down for a moment. But she kept up with Hermione and Luna, trying to ignore the churning feeling in her stomach. But she couldn't ignore it anymore. She paused, realizing that she needed to act soon. Both girls looked at her.

"Go on without me, okay? I just need to use the bathroom," Ginny said, and turned the corner of a hallway, quickening her footsteps, hurrying towards the girls bathroom. She broke into a sprint, bursting into the bathroom, which was luckily vacant, and she fell to her knees in front of a toilet, emptying the contents of her stomach into it.

She had been feeling nauseous for the past hour or so. She had been feeling nauseous on and off all day. She had been feeling nauseous on and off all _week_. And before that, even. She thought back to the first day of quidditch try-outs, and how she had thrown up, but she had just assumed that it was the same illness that everybody else was getting.

She heard the bathroom door open. In her haste, Ginny hadn't managed to close the door of her stall. She glanced behind her. She saw the head of dark, curly hair, and then she turned back to the toilet.

"Ginny," Hermione said behind her.

She vomited again. Hermione was closer, standing right in the doorway of the stall.

"Ginny," she said again.

Ginny shook her head, not wanting Hermione to speak, not wanting to look at her. She couldn't bear to look at her. She knew what she was going to say before she said it.

"Ginny," Hermione said one last time. "Are you pregnant?"


	7. Chapter 6

**A/N:** This is the conversation that I had with myself as I posted the previous chapter:

"You're probably gonna lose readers, you know."

"Shhhh!"

"No, come on! We have to talk about this! You're probably going to lose readers!"

"Okay. Yes. I know. But _why?!_ "

"You know why. A surprise pregnancy storyline?"

"Yeah, but-"

"No. Hey. Listen. You're throwing in one of the biggest cliches in heteronormative fanfiction. You realize that, right?"

"Yeah, but-"

"Imagine this: you're reading a story, you're enjoying it just fine, and then BOOM! A giant cliche!"

"Well, I'd personally probably keep reading."

"Okay, but like... how many times have you publicly described yourself as Harry/Ginny trash? How many times have you read things from start to finish that you _didn't even like that much_?"

"...Truuuuuu."

"So you've gotta accept that some people aren't gonna be into this and they may go away."

"But! But! I'm trying to make it _not_ cliche! And honestly, it's kind of commentary on the sexual education system in schools which, frankly, is a big concern of mine."

"I know that. And you know that. (We both know it because we are both the same brain having a conversation with itself.) But _they_ don't know that."

"They will after the read this ridiculously stupid author's note that's written as a conversation between me and myself."

"Yeah... Um, about that? Maybe you shouldn't-"

"Shhhhhhh!"

Um. Yeah. Okay. Surprise! Unplanned teenage pregnancy storyline! I know, I know, _I know._ If you are having doubts, that's fine! I totally understand! I would have doubts, too! But I really want to take something that is a bit of a cliche and make it less cliche, if that makes sense. I may fail! Who knows?! But I wanna give it a shot. So if you have doubts but you stick with me anyways, then that is really awesome and I definitely appreciate it a lot. I'm having fun writing this story (especially since it is one that has been sitting in my brain for many years) and I really hope that you are all enjoying reading it!

* * *

"No," Ginny shook her head frantically. "No, no, no, no no."

"Ginny, wait!"

Ginny was walking as fast as she could. She didn't know where she was going. But she had to go somewhere. She had to be moving.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no."

She ended up in the Gryffindor common room. It was empty. Everybody was at the Halloween feast. Hermione came in right behind her.

"Ginny!"

"I'm so stupid! How could I be so _stupid?!_ "

She ran up the steps to the dormitories. She heard Hermione's quick footsteps behind her. Her heart was pounding. She brought her hands up to her face, continuing to frantically shake her head, pacing back and forth because she had run out of places to go.

"Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no," she said.

"Why don't you sit down?" Hermione suggested.

"Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no," Ginny continued as if she hadn't heard Hermione at all. Her breathing was growing quicker and quicker, and her lungs felt smaller and smaller, and she couldn't seem to get enough air. Her entire body was way too hot, and her heart was beating too fast, and she couldn't breathe, she couldn't breathe at all, and she gasped for breath, eyes wide, shaking violently.

"Ginny, please sit down, Ginny, please!"

But she didn't. Her hands were in her own hair, gripping, pulling, and she was struggling for breath, and she could feel tears forming in the corners of her eyes. But then she felt Hermione's arms wrapping around her, holding her close to her.

"Ginny, you're having a panic attack. You're okay. You're okay. Breathe. You can breathe. Do you feel me breathing? Breathe with me."

She felt Hermione's steady breaths against her. She tried to mimic her, but she couldn't.

"Count to ten with me, okay?" Hermione asked. Ginny nodded, tears in her eyes. Hermione began to count and Ginny joined in, her voice breathy and strained. By the time they got to eight, though, her voice was a normal whisper, and her breathing was slower, and the pounding of her heart began to feel less intense.

"Let's sit, okay?"

Ginny nodded again, allowing Hermione to lead her to her bed, and she sat.

"Are you okay?"

Ginny nodded, but then shook her head.

"What am I going to do?"

"Are… are you?" Hermione asked nervously.

"I don't know," she admitted meekly.

"It's possible?"

"I don't know," Ginny said again, too panicked to be able to think properly.

"Okay," Hermione said calmly. "You and Harry have had sex?"

Ginny nodded.

"Did you use any sort of protection?"

Ginny slowly shook her head.

"When was your last period?"

Ginny tried to think. She tried to remember, but there were too many other things going through her brain to remember anything that hadn't happened in the past few minutes.

"Okay," Hermione said, seeming to notice Ginny's struggle. "Have you had a period since we've been at school?"

She hadn't. She would have remembered it. She would have gone to the hospital wing, like she did every month that she was at Hogwarts since her second year, to receive the potion that would relieve her cramps. But she hadn't done that at all since returning. They had been back for a month and a half now. She shook her head.

Hermione didn't say anything. She didn't need to.

"How could I not have noticed?" Ginny mumbled. "How could I be so stupid? How…?"

"You've had a lot going on," Hermione told her. But Ginny shook her head. She couldn't allow her to make excuses for her.

"I'm so stupid. I am so completely stupid," she said. "What was I thinking?! I mean, I wasn't thinking, that was the problem. I'm not _completely_ idiotic. I _know_ how a person ends up pregnant, and yet, I didn't… why didn't I? I didn't even think about it! How could I have not thought about it?! I'm so stupid. I'm _so_ stupid! I don't even _know_ the protective charms and stuff! I know they exist, but I don't know them! I should know them! Why don't I know them?!"

"I didn't know them either," Hermione said. "Even though it would make perfect sense for us to learn them in school because they're actually incredibly important for life, we don't learn them. The school puts the responsibility on parents, but my parents are muggles! When Ron and I… well, we were in Australia, and he didn't know anything. He said that your dad usually talked to your brothers before their seventh years, but with Ron… well… there was a lot going on. So he never learned, I never learned, I knew the muggle way, so… that's what we used. But as soon as we returned from Australia - oh!"

Hermione suddenly jumped up, rushing over towards the foot of her own bed, throwing open her trunk and rummaging through it for a moment. Unsurprisingly, she extracted a book, and then sat beside Ginny once again.

"I bought this when I got back from Australia," Hermione said. "I remembered seeing it in the library in the restricted section. Can you believe it? The _restricted_ section!"

Ginny looked down at the book. It was small and brown with silver cursive lettering inscribed on the cover: _A Witch's Guide to Her Self_. Hermione flipped it open and began to look through the pages. Ginny simply watched her.

"There's a chapter on different types of contraception - charms that you can use right before sex, charms that you can use _after_ sex, potions that will protect you for any length of time up to a year…."

Ginny wanted to point out to her that it might be a little bit too late for that information now and that it wasn't going to be very much of a help, but before she could, Hermione said "Aha!" and stopped flipping through the pages of the book.

"There are a few different ways to find out for sure if you're pregnant or not. This one seems the simplest," Hermione said, turning the book for Ginny to see. She looked down at it, and then back up at Hermione.

"I'm scared," she admitted.

"I know," Hermione told her. "I'm here."

Ginny looked at the page of the book again. It was simple. She just had to wave her wand, say an incantation, and then she would know. It seemed _too_ simple. How could something so potentially life-changing be so simple?

"I can't do it."

"Yes you can," Hermione encouraged her, but Ginny shook her head. "Ginny…."

"You do it," she said.

"What?"

"You do it. You do it first."

"Why?" Hermione asked, eyebrows furrowed. "I know I'm not pregnant."

"You might be!"

"No, I'm definitely not."

"Okay, just… Can you please do it first? I just want to know what to expect. Please, Hermione?" Ginny begged.

"Okay, fine!" Hermione gave in, and pulled her wand from her robe. " _Concepi!"_

From the tip of her wand burst a puff of white smoke, which unfurled in the air in front of them, spelling out the words " _YOU ARE NOT PREGNANT."_

They both watched as the smoke faded away. It was that simple. An incantation, a puff of smoke, and then she would know. She could feel her heart beating much too fast as she closed her hand around her wand. She hesitated. She sat there, unmoving, and Hermione didn't rush her. With her free hand, she reached for Hermione, and Hermione grabbed hold, and Ginny took several deep breaths, raising her wand.

" _Concepi,_ " she said. It came out as barely a whisper, but it was enough. Everything seemed to move in slow motion as the smoke poured from her wand and took shape.

 _YOU ARE PREGNANT._

She stared at it. Even after the smoke vanished, she still stared. She could still see it, even though it was gone. Her mind was blank except for three smokey words repeating themselves over and over and over again. She couldn't even begin to process it. She just stared.

"Ginny?" Hermione said after an amount of time that could have been anywhere from a few seconds to several days. Ginny felt her hand, still clutching onto Hermione's.

"Shit," is what she finally said.

"Are you okay?"

"No," she answered honestly, and then turned to look at Hermione. "What do I do?"

"You have options," Hermione told her.

"I do?" she asked, and Hermione nodded.

"There's a potion," she said. "You can take it and it will… it will stop it."

"Stop it?" Ginny repeated, and Hermione nodded.

"It stops the pregnancy."

"How does it… I mean… What… what happens to the…," she trailed off, gesturing towards her stomach, unable to bring herself to say the word _baby_.

"Well, it stops developing," Hermione explained.

"It dies?"

"I wouldn't say that it _dies_. It just stops developing any further."

"What's the difference?" Ginny asked with a frown.

"Well, it's not really viable, you know? It can't survive outside of your body. Depending on how far along you are, it really isn't even much of anything at all yet. Muggles have a way of doing this, too. It's much more complicated, of course, and a lot of people don't agree with it, but it's completely legal and very common."

Ginny was silent. She was trying to comprehend what Hermione was saying, but everything seemed to be fuzzy. Her mind was working slower than usual. Hermione seemed to notice Ginny's confusion and she continued to speak.

"It's like… let's say that you've planted a seed, but you stop watering it before it sprouts. Has the plant died?"

"No…," Ginny shook her head slowly.

"You're just stopping it from becoming a plant. Because plants are a lot of responsibility. Once you have that plant in your life, there's no going back."

"You think I should do it, don't you?" Ginny asked her.

"I can't make that decision for you," Hermione said.

"I don't want you to decide for me," she replied. "I just want to know what you think I should do."

"I think that no matter what choice you make, you're always going to wonder what life would be like if you had chosen differently," she told her. "And I think that you are already dealing with a lot. And any plans that you may have had for your future will be much, much harder if you have a baby to take care of. I will support you no matter what decision you make, but I think… Yeah. I think that you should do it."

Hermione had said the word _baby._ Ginny wished that they could go back to the plant metaphor because hearing the word _baby_ made it too real. _Baby._ An actual human life was developing inside of her. It would grow, and she would grow, and then there would be a baby. A tiny person, and she would be their mother. She would be a mother.

"I'm not ready to be a mother," fell from her mouth in a panicked whisper. She shook her head. "I can't be a mother."

"It's okay," Hermione attempted to comfort her.

"I would be a terrible mother! I can't even do a proper cleaning spell! I don't know to cook or knit or any of those things that my mum can do. I can't be a mum! I would have to give up quidditch! I won't be able to play if I'm pregnant, and then no professional team will take a seventeen year old mother who didn't even play on her school team! And school! What would I do?! Would I drop out? My mother would be thrilled; less than half of her children would have actually finished school. But I couldn't stay, could I? Everybody would know! And exams! By the time we take N.E.W.T.S, I would be like, extremely pregnant. Because I'm pregnant. Oh, shit, I'm pregnant. Oh no, oh no, oh no, I can't be pregnant, I don't want to be pregnant. Hermione, I don't want to be pregnant!" she cried, clutching onto Hermione's hands, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.

"Okay. It's okay, it's okay," Hermione assured her. "You can take the potion if you're sure that's what you want to do."

"I'm sure," she said. "I can't have a baby."

"Okay."

"I can't be pregnant at school. Can you even imagine? And I would have it before we finished. I would _have_ to drop out. It's not like there's a Hogwarts babysitting service!"

She imagined herself walking through the corridors with a giant belly, giving birth in the hospital wing, handing an infant over to a group of house elves while she took her exams. It was so ridiculous, it was almost enough to make her laugh. It was implausible on all accounts. If she remained pregnant, she was sure that she would have no choice but to leave school. She was so close to finishing school. She wanted to finish school and play quidditch. She wouldn't be able to do that with a baby.

But the image in her mind suddenly became bright and clear and she saw herself holding an infant with a mess of dark hair atop its head. She pictured herself with Harry and their baby, and they were happy. She buried her face in her hands.

"Fuck," she grumbled, her words muffled by her hands. "I don't know what to do."

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked, and Ginny looked up at her again.

"I don't know what to do," she repeated. "I don't know what I want to do."

"You don't have to make this decision right now," she said. "You can think it over."

"Hypothetically, if I had it, do you think Harry would… I mean… How do you think Harry would feel?"

"He would be there for you," Hermione said without hesitation. "He wouldn't even think twice about it. He would be there for you and the baby, and not just out of obligation, either."

"You sound so sure."

"I _am_ sure."

"Ron tells you that he loves you," Ginny said, and Hermione looked confused.

"Um. Yeah. He does."

"Harry's never… I mean, I've never…. We don't say that to each other."

"You're not doubting that Harry loves you, are you?"

"We've never told each other. I don't know."

"Growing up, how often was Ron told that he was loved?" Hermione asked.

"A lot," Ginny answered.

"And how often do you think Harry heard that _he_ was loved?"

"... _Oh_."

"Just because he doesn't say it doesn't mean that he doesn't feel it. That boy loves you, Ginny. He may not know how to say it, though. But he loves you."

"When did you and Ron first say that you loved each other?" Ginny asked, and she wasn't sure why she was suddenly so curious about her friend's relationship with her brother, but she wanted to know.

"We were in Australia," Hermione said. "We had just found my parents two days before and successfully brought back their memories. I thought that they were going to be angry with me, but they weren't. After I explained to them why I did it, they were just happy that I was okay. I didn't tell them that Ron and I were dating, but I could tell that my mum knew. And I… I was just really, really happy. And that terrified me. I started crying, that night, right before we were about to go to sleep. I started crying and I couldn't stop, and Ron thought something was wrong, and I tried to explain to him that I was scared, because so many awful things had happened, and there I was, suddenly so happy, and so much to lose, and… eventually, he calmed me down. And he told me that I didn't have to worry about losing him any time soon, because he loved me and he wasn't going anywhere."

Ginny knew that it didn't make any sense to compare her relationship with Harry to Hermione's relationship with Ron, and yet, she was. For a moment, she envied Hermione. She didn't want to. She hated herself for it. But she envied her.

They heard the soft murmur of voices. People were returning to the common room after the Halloween feast. Had they really been up there that long already? They both turned to look towards the door of the dormitory, and then back to each other.

"We can find somewhere else private to keep talking," Hermione suggested, but Ginny shook her head.

"It's okay," she said. "We probably both have homework that we need to do. We should do homework."

"Ginny…."

"What? I can't put everything else on hold just to figure this out."

"I know, but... ," Hermione began, but she trailed off, and Ginny stood up. She wanted to do something, anything to take her mind off of the decision that she didn't know how to make.

But it was pointless. As she sat down at a table in the common room with Hermione, she knew that it was pointless. She couldn't focus. She couldn't take her mind off of it. She stared at a book, but the words on the page made no sense to her. She read and re-read, but she couldn't comprehend a single sentence.

 _Pregnant. Pregnant. Pregnant._

It was all she could think about. Hermione kept looking at her. Ginny could tell that she wanted to say something, and a few times, she even opened her mouth, but then shut it and said nothing. Finally, Ginny gave up.

"I'm going to bed," she said, shutting her book.

But that seemed pointless too.

She couldn't sleep. She lay in her bed, staring up at the ceiling, and she felt sick. Not in the way that she had been feeling sick, with nausea and the need to vomit. Instead, it was a feeling of knots in her stomach, an aching pressure in her chest, the steady, too-heavy pounding of her heart that reverberated throughout her entire body. She couldn't move. She was frozen in one spot, staring straight above her, trying to untangle the thousands of thoughts running through her mind. Every single thought had its own voice, shouting, trying to be heard over the others, and it was just noise. Her mind was full of noise.

She listened as other girls in her dormitory went to bed, and she heard the sound of Hermione getting into the four-poster right beside her own. She didn't know how long she had been lying there, but once everybody else seemed to be asleep, she knew that she had been there for a long time.

She placed a hand on her belly.

It felt the same as it always had. She knew that it was far too early for it to be any different, and yet, she had expected it to be.

Her belly had never been entirely flat. She had always had a softer midsection. She was active, but her mother was a good cook, and she liked to eat. It never bothered her. She never had a reason for it to bother her. She always used to see articles in _Witch Weekly_ about getting rid of soft bellies, and after she started going to Hogwarts, she would hear other girls complaining about their weight, but Ginny never felt any particular way about it. She had never been made to feel badly about it. Growing up, she never heard any mention of weight in her family. It was simply unimportant.

She thought of her mother's belly. Soft and stretched, with light stripes symbolizing the seven children that she had carried within her.

She dug her fingertips into her skin.

 _Pregnant._

There was life forming inside of her. It seemed miraculous. She knew that it wasn't. She never understood when others considered birth a miracle when it happened all the time in every species. She knew that it wasn't a miracle, and yet it seemed miraculous. In the midst of so much grief, after so much death and destruction, there was life forming inside of her.

There was life forming inside of her and she had created it with Harry.

 _Pregnant._

If she decided to end the pregnancy, would she tell Harry about it? It would be so easy not to, and they could just continue on in their relationship without having to ever talk about it. But she would know. She would always know, and she knew that it would always feel like she was hiding a secret. If he knew, how would he feel? If he knew that he had helped to create a life forming inside of her and she decided to stop it, would he be upset? Or would he be relieved?

She didn't even know if he _wanted_ children. They had never discussed it. She didn't even know if _she_ really wanted children. She had thought about it, of course, but it always seemed so far off that she never put it in her plans. She just wanted to finish school and play quidditch. That was all she had planned. None of this was any part of it.

She pressed her hand hard against her belly. It would be so easy to be in denial, if only she hadn't seen those smoky words in front of her. She wanted to go back to when she didn't know. She wanted to ignore it all, to wait until everything just went away on its own, but she knew that was impossible. It wouldn't go away on its own. She had to deal with it. She had to make a decision and then live with that decision.

"Hermione?" she whispered just loud enough to be heard in the bed nearest to her.

"Yeah?"

"You're awake?" she asked, even though she obviously was.

"Yes."

Ginny sat up in her bed, turning to sit on the edge, facing Hermione. Hermione propped herself up on her elbow, looking at Ginny.

"I can't sleep," Ginny said.

"Neither can I."

"Can I… Um. Could I lay with you?" Ginny asked sheepishly. She didn't want to be alone.

"Yes. Of course," Hermione answered. Ginny slid out of her bed, moving as noiselessly as possible to Hermione's.

The bed was small, but it was enough for the two girls. Ginny lay down next to Hermione, and Hermione pulled the blankets over the both of them.

"Have you slept at all since you've been up here?" Hermione asked in barely a whisper.

"No," Ginny shook her head. "I can't shut my brain up."

"I can only imagine."

"I don't want this to be happening."

"I know you don't."

They fell silent. Hermione lay on her back as Ginny curled herself up beside her, reaching a hand out to clutch onto her arm. She felt comforted by having Hermione next to her. Her skin was warm beneath her fingertips. She felt slightly more at ease. She wasn't alone.

"Harry would make a good father," Ginny said softly, breaking the silence.

"He would," Hermione agreed.

"I don't think I would make a very good mother, though."

"Why do you say that?"

"I don't know," she said. "I just don't think that I would."

"I think that you would be fine, if that's what you decided to do."

"I don't know what I want to do."

"It might be easier once the shock wears off," she told her.

"Maybe."

"Everything is going to be okay, Ginny," Hermione said. Ginny wanted to believe her. But she wasn't sure that she did.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Yes."

"Earlier, when I was panicking, how did you know what to do to make me stop?"

"Ron has panic attacks sometimes too," she said.

"He does?"

"Usually at night. Usually out of nowhere. At first I didn't know what to do, but I sort of figured out what worked for him. Luckily, it worked for you, too."

"I didn't know that."

"No, he doesn't really like to talk about it."

"He's very lucky to have you, you know," Ginny said, and Hermione let out a soft breathy laugh. "No, really. I've no idea what took him so long."

"Well… he can be rather oblivious sometimes, can't he?" Hermione said, but even in her nearly-inaudible whisper, Ginny could hear the fondness in her voice.

Ginny closed her eyes. She still held onto Hermione's arm. It was true, what she said. She really didn't have any idea what took her brother so long to finally notice Hermione. Ginny had always found Hermione beautiful, even when they were young. She had always seen Hermione as somebody to look up to, somebody who was slightly older, clever, friends with her brother and with Harry. The more time she spent with Hermione, the more she began to see her as the sister that she never had. She was like her sister and she thought that she was absolutely beautiful, with her soft curves and her dark skin and the dark hair that bounced when she walked. She was beautiful, and Ron had _finally_ noticed. She hoped that one day Hermione _would_ be her sister.

They remained silent and eventually, Ginny heard the steady breathing that told her that Hermione had fallen asleep. She was still nowhere close to sleep.

She wanted to cry, but she didn't. She wanted to scream, but she didn't. She wanted everything to stop. She wanted to go back to summer, back to August when everything was simpler. But it was going into November and she was pregnant and it seemed like nothing would ever be simple again.

 _Pregnant._

No matter how many times she said the word over in her mind, it sounded foreign.

 _Pregnant._

She wanted to believe Hermione when she told her that everything was going to be okay. She wanted to believe her.

"Everything's going to be okay," she whispered out loud to herself. It sounded stupid coming from her own mouth. It sounded forced and fake. Because it was.

But Hermione had to be right. Hermione was always right.

Eventually, once her body and mind were both too exhausted to do anything else, Ginny finally fell asleep. As she fell asleep, she kept one hand on Hermione, and the other hand atop her stomach.

 _Pregnant._


	8. Chapter 7

**A/N:** Ah, I had been doing so well with updating regularly, and so I apologize that this chapter took a little bit longer! I don't have any excuse. I was just kind of lazy. Anyways! This story is actually turning out longer than I originally expected. I remember thinking that it would be somewhere around five chapters long, but here we are at chapter seven and I think that there's still another four or five left? We shall see!

As always, I have been loving and greatly appreciating the feedback I've been receiving! Thank you!

* * *

"Here," Hermione muttered, slipping a small bottle into Ginny's hand.

"What would I do without you?" Ginny asked, dropping the bottle into the pocket of her robes.

"It should last you a while."

"Thank you."

It had been two days. Ginny was still waiting for the initial shock to wear off, but it hadn't yet. It all felt like a very strange dream. Hermione hadn't put any pressure on her at all to make any decisions yet. Instead, she had become Ginny's main source of comfort and support. And as the potion to relieve morning sickness bounced in her pocket as they walked to the Great Hall for breakfast, Ginny was incredibly grateful that she had Hermione.

Ginny had borrowed _A Witch's Guide to Her Self_ from Hermione, and had read and re-read the pages on ending a pregnancy so many times that she already had it practically memorized.

The potion in the book would only end a pregnancy up to twelve weeks along. After twelve weeks, the potion would do nothing. To end a pregnancy later than twelve weeks, she would have to go to a Healer. She wasn't entirely positive how far along she was, but she and Hermione had worked out an estimate of no more than two months. It gave her a month to figure out what it was that she wanted to do.

It would be easy to end it. She just had to take the potion. The book told her that within an hour of taking it, she would menstruate, and that would be it. Her cramps would be worse than usual and her flow would be heavier than normal, but that would be it, and she wouldn't be pregnant anymore.

It would be easy. And yet, she hesitated.

She wanted to talk to Harry. He was, after all, a part of this. But it wasn't something that she could write to him about and she didn't know when their next Hogsmeade weekend would be. And so, she made no decisions. But she had time.

She felt strange, writing letters to Harry, like she had been doing since returning to Hogwarts, and not mentioning anything about the pregnancy when it seemed to be the only thing on her mind. She knew that she couldn't tell him through a letter, and yet she felt like she was almost lying by keeping it from him.

"What if I just casually threw it in at the end?" Ginny asked Hermione as they sat at a table in the common room, working on homework and writing letters to their boyfriends. "You know, just a 'P.S. There's a fetus in me and it's yours'?"

"Very to-the-point," Hermione nodded.

"Or how about: By the way, Harry, I certainly hope that you've enjoyed these past few months of _not_ having responsibilities thrust upon you that are far more burdensome than anyone your age should ever have to deal with, because, guess what? Now there's a baby in your girlfriend's uterus!"

"Hm. Wordy. Kind of confusing."

"You're right. The simpler, the better. The thing is inside me and I still haven't fully comprehended it yet," she sighed, and then groaned, dropping her head into her hands. "I hate how overdramatic I'm being about this."

"Are you being overdramatic?" Hermione asked, raising her eyebrows.

"It feels like it," Ginny said, looking up at her. "I mean, when I put it into perspective… we all nearly died barely a few months ago, and now I'm acting like it's the end of the world because I'm pregnant. It seems rather ridiculous, doesn't it?"

"You do that a lot, don't you?"

"Do what?"

"You minimize your own feelings because you attempt to compare it to other things, and then decide that what you are feeling is somehow not as important as whatever else," Hermione said, and then shrugged. "True, we went through a war, a lot of people died or nearly died, and that was awful. But that has no connection to what you are dealing with now, so you shouldn't compare the two. You should allow yourself to feel whatever is that you are feeling. Your feelings are valid, Ginny. Don't minimize them."

"I don't… I'm not…," she attempted to argue, but she gave up. "You sound like Simone."

"I've learned a lot from her," Hermione admitted. "Speaking of… are you going to talk to her about this?"

"No," Ginny shook her head immediately. "Nobody can know but you. And Harry, eventually. But that's it."

"Okay," she agreed.

"I mean, unless I decide to…. But I don't know what I'm doing. Until I know what I'm doing, nobody else can know."

"Okay," Hermione said again.

But once Ginny was in Simone's office for her first counseling sessions since knowing that she was pregnant, she realized how difficult it would be to not talk about it. It was quite literally one of the only things that she had been thinking about. But she couldn't talk about it. Nobody else could know. So she didn't say much of anything at all. She talked about school and quidditch. She was sure that it was obvious that she was avoiding talking about anything serious. It was like she'd had her big breakthrough in counseling and then was reverting back to how she was when she first started. But this was something that she just couldn't talk about. She couldn't.

…

It had been two weeks. Ginny still hadn't made a decision. She knew that she was halfway through her month before absolutely having to decide. Every day that passed, she became more and more anxious. Every time she thought about it - which was nearly all the time - she felt a tightening sensation in her throat, pressure in her stomach, and a heavy thumping from her heart.

Hermione had a habit of glancing at her with an expression of concern and questioning, and Ginny knew what it meant. She never asked her directly if she had decided yet. She didn't have to. Ginny would just shake her head and Hermione would let it go.

The first Quidditch game of the season was approaching. It was Gryffindor versus Slytherin, and Ginny was training her team nonstop. Being on the Quidditch pitch seemed to be the only time that she was free from the worry and anxiety that she felt every other time. As she flew, focusing on the game and on her team, she could almost forget for a moment that she had to make a potentially life-changing choice very soon.

"Are you sure you should be flying, though?" Hermione whispered her concerns to Ginny one evening in the common room after Ginny had returned from an exceptionally grueling practice.

"It's fine," Ginny assured her, as she climbed the stairs to the girls' dormitories, but Hermione looked unconvinced as she followed her. "Look, under normal circumstances, you're right, I probably shouldn't be flying. But I don't even know if I'm having this baby. I can't just stop doing what I need to do."

"Okay," Hermione said, but she was frowning, and Ginny could tell that there was something that she wanted to say, but wasn't saying it. She felt a twinge of annoyance. The dorm was empty and Ginny began to change out of her Quidditch practice clothes and into her pajamas.

"What?" she asked her, and the annoyance that she felt was evident in her voice.

"Well, nothing," Hermione said. "I'm just… I'm concerned, is all."

"Concerned about what?"

"I'm concerned that you're two weeks into making a really important decision and you haven't given me any indication of where you stand, and I'm concerned that your lack of response thus far means that maybe you shouldn't be doing something as potentially dangerous as playing Quidditch," she admitted rather quickly, standing beside Ginny between both of their beds, not looking directly at her.

Ginny stared at her. There was a part of her that understood that Hermione meant well, and that she was trying to help her, but there was a larger and more forceful part of her that had been having a hard time controlling its emotions lately. Her eyes narrowed, and the twinge of annoyance that she felt earlier was now emitting sparks of anger throughout her body.

"Maybe you should mind your own damn business," she growled at her. Hermione hardly reacted. She met Ginny's eyes, still frowning.

"I don't think you mean that," Hermione replied calmly. She was right, and Ginny knew it, but her calmness irritated her.

"Look, it's not like I'm…. I'm not… I mean…," she paused, trying to figure out what it was that she was even trying to say. She fell down onto her bed to sit, folding her legs underneath her. "I haven't made a decision yet because it's a really hard decision to make, okay?"

"You haven't really talked about it very much. If it's because you don't want to, because you want to figure it out on your own, then that's fine. But… you know I'm here if you need to talk through it, right?"she asked, and in an instant, the negative feelings that Ginny had towards Hermione melted away.

"I just don't want to be annoying," she admitted.

"Ginny, you're not annoying," Hermione assured her, sitting down on her own bed across from Ginny, looking at her.

"As soon as I think that I've made a decision, I start second-guessing it, and think about the other option. Both options have good things and both options have bad things. And… I'm scared."

"Scared of making the wrong choice?" Hermione asked, and Ginny nodded.

"Because what if I end it and I _don't_ end up with the career that I want or the life that I want? You know, what if in five or ten years, nothing is how I want it to be, and all I will be thinking about is how maybe I would be happy if I'd had a baby. But what if I _do_ have it and then I won't be able to pursue the career that I want at all, and what if I end up resenting my own child for that? But then, if I don't have it, I could go on to be wildly successful and happy… But if I do have it, I could go on to feel completely fulfilled and happy…. I just wish I could know _now_ what will happen either way. Also, Harry! I don't want to leave him out of this. If I decide to have it, it will completely change _his_ life, too. And I would also feel badly about ending it without him even _knowing_ about it."

"I keep holding out hope for a Hogsmeade weekend soon…."

"Me too," Ginny nodded. "I don't think I can tell him if it's not in person."

"What if there is no chance to see him in person, though? What then?"

"I don't know," she said with a frown, and then sighed. "On the upside, though, have you seen my boobs lately?"

"You know, I didn't want to say anything and make it weird, but _yes._ I _did_ notice that they look-"

"Incredible, right?" Ginny said, looking down at her own chest. "I mean, they hurt _all the time_ but my goodness, I've been waiting for tits like these since I started getting tits!"

Hermione laughed, and Ginny did too. Finding the silver lining in a situation had always made her feel better. It wasn't any different now.

"I'm sorry that I was short with you," Ginny mumbled an apology. Hermione simply shrugged.

"I mostly just assumed that it was a mood swing. I didn't take it personally," she said.

"It's kind of exhausting going from being perfectly content to a raging psychopath in a split second," she sighed. "And the crying? I cry a lot now. Yesterday I saw a first-year girl trip and fall in the corridor, and then a first-year boy stopped and helped her up, and I started _crying_ over it. An actual _tear_ fell out of my eye!"

"Just one tear?"

"Yeah, I mean, it really wasn't worth more than that. But still!"

Hermione laughed again. Ginny couldn't blame her. Ginny let out a sigh and repositioned herself so that she was lying down on her bed, looking up at the ceiling.

"Tell me again that everything is going to be okay?" she asked Hermione.

"Everything is going to be okay," she assured her, and she sounded sincere. "No matter what, everything is going to be fine."

"Promise?"

"I wouldn't lie to you."

"Okay. Thank you."

"You're welcome."

…

Ginny sat in the locker room. She was alone. She was early. She had skipped breakfast to come down before the rest of the team. Any minute now, they would all come in, excited and ready for their first match. She knew that they were ready. She knew that they knew that they were ready.

She listened to the silence. She found it to be incredibly calming.

There had been no Quidditch the previous school year. The last Quidditch game she had played at school had been in her fifth year. Gryffindor had won and then Harry had kissed her.

She smiled.

Her teammates slowly began to make their way into the locker room, a few at a time, until they were all there. They talked to each other as they changed into the Quidditch robes and as the noise from outside grew louder as the stadium began to fill with students and professors.

"Okay!" Ginny called to her team, and in an instant they were quiet and looking at her. "I don't have much to say. We've trained hard and we're ready. Play your best, and we're going to do just fine. Now, let's go destroy these Slytherins!"

The group cheered, high-fiving each other, patting each other on the backs, and shouting out words of encouragement.

They were ready.

Ginny shook the hand of the Slytherin team captain. Madam Hooch blew her whistle. And they were off.

It was pure freedom. Her mind was cleared of everything except for the game. In less than five minutes, Gryffindor had already scored twice against Slytherin, Ginny scoring once, and another chaser - a fourth year girl named Grace - making the other score. They were off to a good start.

The Slytherin chasers were pretty good, but Sebastian, the Gryffindor keeper, was better. Ginny shot him a thumbs-up as he successfully blocked Slytherin from scoring. He grinned back at her. A bludger flew towards her, and she dived out of the way, narrowly avoiding it as it whizzed past her.

 _Maybe if I get hit by a bludger, I'll fall of my broom and I won't have to make a decision anymore…_ she thought to herself, and was immediately repulsed by her own brain. She didn't want to be thinking about this. This was supposed to be her free space. And she didn't want to get distracted.

But it was already too late. Grace was attempting to pass the quaffle to her, but she wasn't paying attention, and then it was somehow in the hands of a Slytherin chaser. Her moment of distraction seemed to distract others on her team, because Sebastian failed to block the goal posts, and a roar erupted from the Slytherin stands.

"Dammit," Ginny cursed out loud, but Gryffindor was still ahead by thirty points.

She glanced around, looking for her team's seeker. She spotted her, above the rest of them, circling the field. She was a small fifth-year girl named Phillipa with dark hair and a round face. Her tiny size seemed to make her incredibly fast, and she had been doing very well in practices, but Ginny worried about her. She was sure it was because she was completely biased and didn't think that anybody could _really_ take Harry's place as Gryffindor's seeker, but she would never admit that out loud. She hoped that Phillipa would catch the snitch early on and end the game sooner rather than later. She was hopeful that her team's moment of weakness due to her own distraction was just a one-time flaw, but she worried that it was the beginning of a downwards turn.

Slytherin scored again. Gryffindor scored twice more.

Ginny flew towards the Slytherin goal posts, quaffle clutched tightly, aiming, throwing, and it was blocked. The Slytherins cheered. Ginny scowled, but out of the corner of her eye, a red and gold blur flew past her, and she turned to see Phillipa headed in a direction with determination. And then she saw the golden glint of the snitch hovering towards the ground a fair distance away. The Slytherin seeker had seen it too, and he followed the small girl, but he was no match for her. She had swooped down and then back up again, holding the snitch in her hand, and the crowd erupted, and Ginny grinned, flying towards the ground and crowding Phillipa with the rest of the team.

"Brilliant, Phillipa, brilliant!" Ginny cried, and the girl beamed, allowing herself to be swallowed up by the team.

Ginny was happy. She was ecstatic. There were few things that gave her the same amount of satisfaction as winning a Quidditch match did. Ever since the first match she had ever won, she had known that this was what she wanted to do for as long as she possibly could.

"Party in the common room!" somebody yelled out. Ginny grinned, patting her team's seeker on the back once more, and then heading towards the locker rooms to change.

…

"It was a very good game yesterday."

"Thanks, Luna," Ginny sighed. "But now I'm even more behind on homework than I was before."

"The way people are acting, you'd think we'd won the Quidditch cup," Hermione rolled her eyes. "Some of them are _still_ going at it. Getting anything done in the common room was next to impossible."

"I think it's nice," Luna said. "So many of us missed having Quidditch last year. I can't blame them for being so excited."

"It is nice. But I didn't expect the celebrations to last for so long. I had planned on doing work last night, but then I was just too tired," Ginny explained with a frown.

"Oh, are you tired because of the pregnancy?" Luna asked casually. "I've heard that happens."

For a split second, Ginny thought nothing of it, but then she realized what Luna had just said. She immediately looked at Hermione, ready to accuse her of spilling her secret, but she could tell by her shocked expression that she hadn't told her.

"Wh- How- What?!" Ginny sputtered out. "How do you know?!"

"Oh, am I not supposed to?" she asked, looking up at Ginny with her round, innocent eyes. "I'm sorry. I thought it was obvious."

Ginny wanted to ask her how it was obvious, but she reconsidered it. After all, Luna _was_ extremely observant, and perhaps it _was_ obvious that she was pregnant.

"You won't tell anyone, will you?"

"Oh, no, of course not. It's not mine to tell! Does Harry know yet?"

Ginny shook her head. "Nobody knows but you and Hermione."

"I'm sure Harry will be very happy. He seems to be quite taken with his godson."

"Yeah, I…," Ginny frowned. "I don't know if I'm going to have it or not."

"Oh," Luna said, looking contemplative. "You didn't become pregnant on purpose then?"

"No! Why would I do that?"

"I don't know," she shrugged. "People become pregnant on purpose all the time."

"Not when they're seventeen," Ginny said.

"I suppose that's true."

"Hogwarts has a rubbish policy on sexual education," Hermione commented with a scowl towards the walls of the library, as if it was its fault that the school's sexual education was bad.

"That is also true," Luna nodded in agreement. "I suppose they might think that it would be uncomfortable for student to learn about sex from a teacher, but I think that it's more uncomfortable to talk about sex with parents. Maybe if my mum was still alive, it wouldn't have been terrible. But my dad didn't talk about it with me. I don't think it was until he noticed that I was spending time with a boy that he even thought much about it. And then he left a book in my bedroom. It was very informative."

Ginny glanced quickly at Hermione, who met her eyes with her own quizzical glance. Ginny shrugged, answering Hermione's unasked question, and then they both turned back to Luna.

"What boy were you spending time with, Luna?" Ginny asked, a smile playing at her lips.

"I do worry that it might make things slightly uncomfortable," Luna began without hesitation. "But I think that as you are pregnant by Harry, you won't really be bothered."

"What?" Ginny asked, not really following along.

"I don't actually know if you would be bothered by it at all. You don't seem like the type. But I've always heard other girls saying that friends' ex-boyfriends were off-limits. And I would never want to do anything to upset a friend."

"Wait…," Ginny mumbled, and she and Hermione looked quickly at each other again, and then back to Luna, who seemed to be trapped in her own thought process.

"Luna, who is it?!" Hermione asked, snapping Luna out of it.

"Dean Thomas," she said.

"Luna!" Hermione grinned. "You're going out with Dean Thomas?!"

Luna simply smiled, gazing serenely at the two girls.

"It is quite unexpected isn't it?" she noted, then looked at Ginny. "You're not upset?"

"No! Luna, of course not. Dean and I went out _ages_ ago," she assured her.

"That's a relief. I was quite worried."

"Wait, how did this happen? I want to know everything!" Hermione pressed.

"Well, as you know, after we escaped from Malfoy Manor and went to Shell Cottage, Dean and I spent time together," she explained, and both Hermione and Ginny nodded. Ginny had only heard about this, but Hermione had been there. "He was very kind to me. We didn't know each other well, but it was nice to be around each other. He was very comforting. After the war ended, he wrote me, and we spent more time together. He admitted to thinking that I was odd at first, but during our time at Shell Cottage, he had begun to find it endearing. I thought that was nice. It was all very strange. I've never really had any particular interest in dating anybody, but I have found that it is rather nice. I think Daddy likes him a lot, too. He helped us both a lot this summer. It was very kind of him."

Ginny couldn't help but grin. She remembered how exciting the early stages of dating were, and she was happy for her friend. As unlikely a pairing as she found it to be, it somehow made sense.

"Luna, that's wonderful," she told her.

"Oh, I am glad that you are not upset. I worried about it a lot."

"Well, like you said, I am pregnant by Harry. I'm not bothered. Dean's a good bloke, he just wasn't right for me. But I'm glad he found you."

"I think that if you and Harry did have a baby, you would both be lovely parents," Luna said. Ginny smiled.

"Thanks, Luna."

…

It was windy. Windy and cold. Ginny watched as her Quidditch team left the pitch, marching back to the castle. Practice had run later than usual, and the days were getting shorter, and it was already dark. Ginny held back, not walking with the rest of her team. The wind whipped at her face, and even though her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, strands of it flew into her eyes. She welcomed the cold and the wind and the way it felt against her skin.

Practice had gone well. The team was still in extremely high spirits from their win against Slytherin, and it seemed to make their performances even better. She was proud of her team. She remembered how worried she had been when choosing her new members, but she was proud of them.

She pushed hair from her face, although it was useless, as the wind blew it right back. Her hand gravitated down to her stomach. It had become almost an instinct at this point. When she was alone, when she was lying in bed, whenever she could, she placed a hand over her belly.

She thought that maybe she was imagining it, but it had started to feel different. Like there was just the tiniest, slightest bulge there. Her skin felt tighter. She didn't think that it would be noticeable to anybody else, but it was her body, and she was sure that it had begun to change.

Goosebumps had erupted over her exposed flesh. She thought of the common room and the fire that would surely be burning inside, and it was appealing. And yet, being alone outside in the cold, dark, windy night was also appealing. She found it peaceful. Everything made a little bit more sense when she was alone like this.

She knew what she wanted to do.

It wasn't going to be easy. Although, none of the options were particularly easy.

But standing there, alone, wind-blown, and cold, looking up at the night sky with the Hogwarts castle illuminated in front of her, it was all clear. She didn't know how or why it was suddenly so clear to her, but she didn't feel like questioning it. It was the first time she had been certain about anything in a long time.

She finally began to make her way towards the castle. When she entered, the sudden rush of warmth over her cold skin caused her to let out a soft sigh of satisfaction. She hadn't realized just how cold she has been. Her fingers were numb, and the tips of her ears began to burn as they regained feeling.

She climbed through the portrait hole into the common room. It was fairly crowded, especially around the fireplace. Ginny glanced around, spotting Hermione at a small table in the corner. She was immersed in a book while a pair of knitting needles worked on something beside her.

"I thought you were going to try a new approach with house elf liberation?" Ginny questioned as she slid into the chair opposite Hermione.

"Hm?" Hermione mumbled, glancing up from her book at Ginny. Ginny nodded her head towards the knitting needles.

"Making hats for house elves again?"

"Wha- Oh!" Hermione exclaimed, seemingly having forgotten about her knitting, looking at it, and then grabbing it. "You weren't - I mean. I…."

Ginny furrowed her eyebrows, tilting her head at her friend. There was something that she wasn't telling her.

"You weren't supposed to see that," Hermione finally said.

"What do you mean? Why not?"

"I…," she trailed off, and then glanced around the crowded room. She picked up her wand. " _Muffliato."_

"What's going on?"

"I was making it for you," she admitted, holding out her work, and Ginny noticed that the hat, made of a dark green yarn, was significantly smaller than the ones that Hermione used to make for the elves. "Well, I mean… for the baby."

"You were?" Ginny asked, and she nodded.

"I wanted it to be a surprise. I was going to give it to you when- I mean, _if -_ you decided that you were going to have it. I wanted it to be my way of showing that I support your decision," she explained, and she sounded unsure and shy.

" _When_ I decided that I was going to have it?" Ginny repeated, ignoring Hermione's mid-sentence correction.

"I know how presumptuous that sounds, I do. It's just that...I thought that maybe since it's been taking you so long decide, that meant that you were… probably… maybe… going to have it."

She looked nervous, as if Ginny may explode at any second. She couldn't blame her. Her mood swings did make her rather unpredictable, and Hermione had gotten quite a bit of it. But Ginny wasn't angry. She wasn't angry at all.

"I am," is what she said.

"You are?" Hermione asked, barely concealing her surprise. Ginny nodded slowly, and a small smile spread across her lips.

"I am," she repeated. "I'm completely mental, aren't I?"

"No!" she shook her head. "Admittedly, it's not going to be easy, but you'll have help and it will be fine. And your baby is going to be _so_ loved and so happy, and, oh gosh, I feel like I should hug you, but I don't want to draw unwanted attention over here!"

"Oh, fuck it, get over here and hug me, Granger!" Ginny demanded, and the two girls dissolved into giggles as Hermione scurried from her chair over to Ginny, swooping down and pulling her into a tight embrace. Ginny closed her eyes, holding onto her friend. She felt a lightness spread over her. The anxiety that had been pressing down on her for nearly four weeks had been lifted. She knew that it wouldn't last. It would be replaced with a new type of anxiety any second, but for now, she allowed herself to feel free for a moment.

When Hermione finished hugging her, she sat back down across from her. They both glanced at the common room and noticed a few curious eyes in their direction, but it didn't really matter.

"What am I going to do about school?" Ginny asked.

"We'll figure it out," Hermione assured her. "I have an idea, but we'll have to talk to Luna."

"Okay," Ginny nodded. And then they both fell silent. They both knew what the other was thinking about, and it was Hermione who broke the silence.

"You have to tell him," she said.

"I know," she agreed. "Next Hogsmeade weekend. It's bound to be any day now."

"Okay," Hermione said. "It'll be fine, you know. He'll probably be surprised at first. Get really quiet. Probably blame himself and apologize for whatever-"

"Hermione," Ginny smiled, cutting her off. "I know. That's exactly what I expect from him as well."

"Right. I guess you know him about as well as I do now, don't you?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe in some ways, but not in others."

Hermione smiled at her, and she couldn't help but smile back.

"You're having a baby!" Hermione said in complete awe. Ginny simply nodded.

"I'm having a baby," she said, and then she laughed. She couldn't quite believe it. It was real and she had decided and she was certain that she was making the right choice.

"I'm having a baby."


	9. Chapter 8

**A/N:** I really wanted to get this chapter posted last weekend, but things were a little rough for me (by that, I mean that I had too much tequila at drag queen brunch and puked multiple times in the subway station and was then hung over for three full days. So it was entirely my own fault, and I am sorry!) Also, this chapter is significantly shorter than other chapters, but it ended where I needed it to end, and I didn't want to add pointless stuff so... it's shorter. Sorry about that!

Anyways, I hope you guys are enjoying this, because I enjoy writing it, and your feedback means the world to me and I appreciate it so very much!

* * *

"Okay," Hermione said, looking back and forth between Luna and Ginny as they sat in a secluded corner of the library. "I've talked with Luna and she's on board. Right, Luna?"

"Absolutely!" Luna nodded.

"Okay," Ginny said.

"So here's the plan that I've come up with," Hermione continued. "Now, I think it's best to not bring this to McGonagall until after Christmas. When we come back from break, I think, would be the best time. It's still early enough to not seem last-minute, but far enough in the school year that you would only have the last half to finish. And you also might be starting to show then, too, so it will get harder to hide, anyways."

"Okay," Ginny said again, agreeing without even hearing the full plan yet.

"And of course I will be there with you when you go to her, if you want me to."

"Me too!" Luna added. "Maybe it would be good for all of us to be there. Strength in numbers, you know? And then she'll see how serious we are about helping."

"You're right," Hermione nodded. "Ginny, is that okay?"

"Sure," she said. "I don't know the actual plan yet, but sure."

"Right, right, the plan," Hermione said. "So, I think that you could probably stay at Hogwarts for a while, probably until around Easter break. You'll be around eight months along then, so that seems like a good time for you to leave school. After you leave, Luna and I will both take notes for you for your classes, send them immediately by owl along with any assignments, which you can do from home and send back to us so we can turn them in for you. It might get a little tricky and difficult, but I think that we can make it work. Also, since you're of age, you'll be able to practice anything that we cover in class. Of course, once the baby is born, it may be even more difficult, but by then, N.E. won't be too far off. You could come for the exams, leaving the baby with Harry or your mum, and… finish school. I think that this can work. Do you?"

"I…," Ginny struggled to say something, but she was nearly speechless. "You're willing to do that for me?"

"Of course we are," Luna answered as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"And, as far as Quidditch goes, Gryffindor doesn't have another match until after Christmas. If you don't want to completely stop training, you could go down to one practice a week and just take it easy. And then after Christmas…."

"Right," Ginny said, understanding that quitting the team would soon be very necessary. And as sad as the thought made her, she knew that she had to do it, and she knew that it would be okay.

"Does that sound okay to you?" Hermione asked. All Ginny could do was nod. She was touched that her friends would go to the trouble to help her be able to finish school. She couldn't help it when her eyes flooded with tears. She quickly looked down at the surface of the table, trying to conceal her emotions, but she heard Hermione stifle a giggle beside her.

"Thank you," she mumbled. "This really means a lot to me."

"It's really no problem," Hermione assured her. "We just have to hope that McGonagall will be okay with it."

Ginny simply nodded. She had already thought plenty about how she would tell Harry that she was pregnant, and how she would tell her mum and dad and her brothers, and yet, the idea of telling Professor McGonagall about her pregnancy terrified her more than the thought of telling any of the others. She was already imagining the look of disappointment on McGonagall's face. It was already making her feel guilty, and it hadn't even happened yet.

"Are you okay?" Hermione asked her, and Ginny realized that her fear and guilt were evident on her face.

"Yeah, I'm just…," she trailed off with a shrug, not sure of what to say.

"Everything is going to be fine," Hermione said.

"It will be," Luna agreed.

Ginny nodded, but she felt unconvinced, and probably looked it, too. Hermione held out her hand, on top of the table, and without a second thought, Ginny took it, holding onto it. On her other side, Luna followed, offering her hand as well, and Ginny accepted. And there she sat, at a secluded table in the library, holding onto the hands of her two closest friends, feeling closer to them than ever.

"We'll be there for you," Luna said.

"No matter what," Hermione added.

All Ginny could do was smile, and try not to cry again.

…

Ginny sat, staring into the blue eyes of her counselor. They were both silent. They had been sitting like that for what felt like several minutes now. It was Ginny who had to break the silence, but she wasn't sure how. Simone was waiting for her to say something, waiting for her to answer the question that she had just asked.

"Answer me honestly here, Ginny," she had said, and Ginny had squirmed in her seat, already uncomfortable with the prospect of having to be honest about something. "What are you getting out of these sessions? Are you getting anything at all? I understand that delving into deeper issues may be more difficult for you than the average person, and that's alright. But for the past month or so, you've been seeming unwilling to discuss much at all. I don't want to push you, but I also want us to make the most of our time together. Are you feeling that you are not going to get anything from these sessions, or are you simply unsure how to move forward?"

Ginny hadn't known how to answer the question, and so she stared at her. And Simone stared back. Ginny hadn't fooled Simone in the slightest these past few weeks, talking about anything other than what was actually on her mind. She wasn't surprised by this, but still caught slightly off guard.

Finally, unable to look at her any longer, Ginny glanced down at her hands in her lap, and she began to pick at a fingernail, heart thudding against her chest.

"I think I'm going to be leaving Hogwarts," she said. It wasn't an answer to the question, but it was the best she could do.

"Oh?"

"Yeah," she mumbled, looking up at Simone again, but not meeting her eyes. "Not for a little while. But I'm going to have to."

"Why is that?"

Ginny hesitated.

"Everything I say to you stays confidential, right?"

"There are rare exceptions, but yes," Simone nodded.

"What are the exceptions?"

"If I think that you might be a danger to yourself or others," she said. "That's about it."

"Okay."

"Why? What is going on?"

"I'm pregnant."

It was the first time that she was telling somebody. Hermione had been there when she found out, and Luna had figured it out on her own. But Ginny was delivering the news to somebody for the first time, and the words felt strange coming out of her mouth, and she suddenly found it very difficult to look at Simone.

"You're…," she heard Simone mutter.

"Pregnant. Yeah," Ginny confirmed, picking at her fingernail again.

"How far along?"

"Three months or so."

"How long have you known?"

"About a month," she answered.

"Ah," Simone said. "I see."

"I couldn't talk about it before," Ginny continued, speaking softly. "I wasn't sure if… if I was going to have it or not. I was considering ending the pregnancy. But I didn't. I decided not to. It felt like the right choice. I mean, it still does. I'm just scared as hell."

"Of course you are," Simone said. "Impending motherhood is a very scary thing for a lot of women, regardless of age."

"But my age certainly doesn't help," Ginny said.

"No. It doesn't. That is true," Simone agreed.

"I keep thinking that I must be absolutely insane," Ginny sighed. "Especially since, when I try to rationalize it, I can't think of any logical reason why this is a good idea."

"Sometimes, motherhood defies logic."

Ginny nodded. That was something that she was already coming to realize. It was something that she was sure would continue to prove itself again and again.

She ended up telling Simone about her plan - Hermione's plan - to finish school. She talked about Hermione's support, and Luna's support, and how grateful she was for it. She told Simone that she hadn't yet told Harry about the baby, but she quickly moved on to another topic before she allowed herself to express any of her deep worry about the situation. She talked about her family and the ever-present anxiety at telling them about the pregnancy. She hadn't let herself think about it too much yet. Her main focus was on telling Harry, and she would deal with the rest when the time came.

"I think that is a good way for you to go about it," Simone told her. "Worry about one thing at a time. Worrying about it all at once will just overwhelm you."

"I know," Ginny agreed.

"I'm sure it seems like a lot to take on, and it is," Simone said. "But it seems to me like you have a good support system already in place, and you've clearly thought about this a lot already. You're smart and you're strong, and I know you can handle this."

Ginny smiled. It was one thing when Hermione and Luna offered their support. It meant a lot to her, but they were her friends, her peers. Simone was different. She was older, an authority figure almost, and to hear her say that Ginny could handle this made her believe that she truly could.

Ginny's eyes landed on a framed photograph on Simone's desk. She had seen it before, but she had never really looked at it. It was facing Simone, but angled slightly, enough for Ginny to see the little boy with curly blond hair and rosy cheeks, grinning up at the camera, sitting on the lap of a handsome man with Simone's arms draped around his shoulders. The photograph stayed still. It was clearly taken with a muggle camera.

"Is that…?" Ginny began gesturing towards the photo.

"My son," she nodded.

It momentarily struck Ginny as odd that she didn't know that Simone had a child. She hadn't even thought much about her life outside of Hogwarts. But then the realization that Simone was a mother swept over her. Simone was a mother. She understood. She could talk to her about these things and she would truly understand. She glanced at Simone's hands. She didn't notice a ring on her finger.

"Are you married?"

"I'm not," she answered with a small smile.

"Oh."

"My son's father and I are together, though. We have been for many years. We just haven't married."

"You had a baby without being married?" Ginny asked, fully aware that she was likely being too personal, but she suddenly had so many questions.

"Yes," Simone nodded, a smile still playing at her lips. "You want to know if it was a surprise or not, don't you?"

"Yes," she admitted. "Is that an inappropriate question for me to ask you?"

"Perhaps," Simone shrugged. "But given the circumstances… I'll allow it. He was a surprise. A very happy surprise. I had wanted children, but by the time I was in my mid-thirties and still unmarried, I began to consider the possibility that it may not happen. But then it did."

"But why didn't you get married?" Ginny asked her. She had been wondering lately if she and Harry would get married because of the baby. She assumed that that was what they would have to do. She assumed that that was just how things were. She couldn't think of any unmarried couples with children that she knew. She figured that you either got married before having a baby, or got married _because_ you were having a baby.

"It was in the plans," she said. "But I wanted to wait until I wasn't pregnant anymore, but then… things began to get a little bit more serious with the war and it sort of slipped away from us."

"Do you think that you will now, though? Now that the war is over?"

"I don't know. After so much time of being happily unmarried, we've began to wonder if it's really necessary. Many people do not understand it - our own families included. But it works for us, and that's all that matters."

"I don't want Harry to marry me because he thinks that he has to," Ginny said, very quickly, hardly processing the words at all before speaking them. It was something that had been lingering in the back of her mind for a while, but she was too afraid to think it, let alone say it out loud.

"I mean," she said, trying to choose her words carefully. "I wouldn't mind being married to him, I don't think. But if we were to marry because I'm pregnant, I think that I might always wonder if that is the reason that _he_ wanted to. If he really wanted to… or if he felt obligated."

"A valid concern," Simone agreed.

"Of course, he doesn't even know yet. He may not even think of marriage at all," she said with a frown.

"And if he does?" she asked. "If he asks you to marry him?"

"I don't know," Ginny admitted. "I don't know if I would be able to say no. Or if I would even _want_ to say no. I don't know."

"Perhaps that's something to discuss with him, when the time comes. Tell him your concerns. Figure it out together."

Ginny nodded.

"Parenthood involves a lot of figuring out things together. It'll be good practice," Simone added.

…

 _Dear Harry,_

 _Finally! We've just been told of our next Hogsmeade weekend! December 12th. It's about damn time. I trust you'll pass the news on to Ron, although I'm sure that Hermione will be untrustworthy of us both and write her own letter to Ron, even though I've promised her that I would tell you to tell him. I'm not sure what she thinks might happen - that you'll just forget to tell him and come on your own and leave him at home? I really don't know. Either way, I am looking forward to seeing you again. The last Hogsmeade weekend feels like it was ages ago._

 _I do have something important to tell you when I see you next. It is news best delivered in person, which is why it has to wait until then._

 _Until then,_

 _Ginny._

…

It was Friday. The day before the Hogsmeade trip. The day before Ginny would see Harry again. The day before Ginny planned to tell Harry that she was pregnant. She had a bubble of anxiety inside of her. Throughout the week, the closer the day got, the more the bubble of anxiety grew. It was all she could feel. That, and the pain in her lower back that had persisted for a few days.

She could barely pay attention in any of her classes. All she could think about was how, in twenty-four hours' time, Harry would know about the baby. She had already gone through nearly every single possible scenario in her imagination.

He could be thrilled, excited at the prospect of being a father, albeit a young one.

He could be scared, like her, but willing to make it work.

He could be completely appalled, angry, beg her to end it.

He could leave her. She didn't think that it was a likely option, but it still persisted in her mind. All of her worries pushed on her. Maybe he didn't love her, no matter what Hermione said. Maybe he didn't love her, maybe he didn't want to be with her, maybe he didn't want to be tied to her forever by a living being that they had created together.

"You should really eat something," Hermione said to her. Ginny snapped out of the daze that she was in, finding herself in the Great Hall. She felt like she had been simply floating from place to place all day, barely conscious, just going through the motions while her mind was elsewhere. She could barely remember how she got to the Great Hall. And was it lunchtime or dinnertime? She had been staring at the food in front of her. Nothing looking appealing at all. Her stomach was in knots.

"Not hungry," she told Hermione.

"You've barely eaten today."

"It's fine," Ginny assured her.

"Are you feeling okay?"

"I'm just nervous about tomorrow, that's all."

"Have you figured out what you're going to say to him yet?"

"I'll probably just be straightforward. Just tell him. Get it over with."

"Right," Hermione nodded. "It shouldn't be too difficult to steer Ron elsewhere, give you two time alone."

"That'll be the easiest part."

"Yeah. It will be," Hermione agreed. "Everything is going to be fine."

"Will it?"

"Yes. It will. I'm sure of it."

Ginny sighed, willing herself to believe Hermione. She looked at the food in front of her again. It still looked unappealing. She began to stand up from the table.

"I think I'm going to go back up to the common room early," she told Hermione.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I think I just want to be by myself for a little bit," she said.

"Okay," Hermione said, giving her a small, encouraging smile.

Ginny went straight to her bed and fell asleep early.

…

When Ginny was eleven years old, she had her first period. She was in Egypt with her family, and she could remember waking up in the middle of the night, her abdomen aching fiercely. When she woke up the next morning, she had begun to bleed. She knew what was happening, but she hadn't been expecting it for another couple of years or so. She remembered crying as she told her mother. She wasn't sure why she cried, but she did. She was embarrassed, convinced that all of her brothers knew, and she was miserable - cramping, hot, sticky, constantly paranoid that she was going to get blood on her pants. When it finished, she rejoiced, but it returned, month after month and eventually, she just got used to it.

She was remembering her first period, and how she had woken up in the night with her first cramps, and she hadn't been entirely sure what was happening, but she knew that it hurt and that she had wanted it to stop. She was remembering it so clearly, as she lie awake in her four-poster bed, her breathing growing increasingly more ragged with panic as she felt the familiar aching throb in her abdomen, but much stronger and much more painful than ever before. She placed a hand over her stomach and squeezed her eyes tightly shut, shifting onto her side, bringing her knees up to her chest, curling herself up as small as possible, resisting the urge to cry out.

She wasn't entirely sure what was happening, but she knew that it hurt, and she wanted it to stop.

"Hermione."

It came out weak, barely more than a whisper, and she knew that it was useless. She pushed her blankets off of her, sliding out of her bed, clutching her belly as she moved the short distance to Hermione's bed.

"Hermione," Ginny said again, placing a hand on her sleeping friend's shoulder, and Hermione jumped, letting out the tiniest frightened squeak before seeing that it was only Ginny.

"Hermione," she repeated, and even she could hear the panic in her own voice.

"What? Ginny, what…. what is it?"

"Something's wrong," she whispered, and Hermione immediately sat up, wide-eyed, looking at her with worry.

"What do you mean? What's happening?"

"I don't know. But something's wrong. I think something's wrong with the baby."

"What…," Hermione started, but then trailed off, and even in just the dim moonlight, Ginny could see her friend's expression change, her face falling and something like sad realization dawning on it.

"Hermione?"

"Ginny… Ginny, you're bleeding."

Ginny looked down. A part of her already knew what she would see, and yet the sight of the dark blood spreading over the fabric of her light pink pajama pants made her stomach drop, her chest tighten, her hands shake violently. She could feel her breath catching in her throat, her lungs felt like they were being squeezed.

She turned towards the nightstand, reaching a shaking hand out to grab her wand.

"Ginny?"

She grabbed it, and she was barely able to croak out the incantation.

" _Concepi."_

She watched the smoke erupt from the tip of her wand, unfurling as if in slow motion, illuminated from the moonlight streaming in from the window. Her heart pounded until it seemed to stop, and everything from her brain to the tips of her fingers to the tips of her toes seemed to go numb as she read the smokey words in front of her.

 _YOU ARE NOT PREGNANT._


	10. Chapter 9

Was this what people meant when they uttered the phrase about seeing their lives flashing before their eyes? When they said it, were they referring to the life that they had already lived? Their past, the important moments that brought them to that spot at that time? Or did they mean that they were witnessing the life that they hadn't yet seen - and likely never would?

Ginny saw it all. The moments that led her there, and the moments that had been yet to come.

"He's perfect," Harry was saying as he held the newborn baby in his arms.

And then Ginny was watching her mother, grinning as she held the baby, bouncing him and causing him to let out shrieks of laughter. It was the happiest she had seen her mother in ages.

The baby was learning to walk. Harry's arms were outstretched as the child cautiously took a few wobbly steps towards him. They were all smiling.

Two boys zoomed around the kitchen, chasing each other and laughing and shouting while Ginny struggled with one of her mother's easiest recipes. She was still a dreadful cook. Harry stepped through the door, and both boys halted, one of them shouting "Dad!", the other yelling out "Harry!" Harry laughed as his son and godson ran towards him. He managed to drop a kiss on Ginny's cheek and say a quick hello before the two boys dragged him away from her. She couldn't help but smile.

They were all so clear, they felt like memories, but they had never happened. And they never would. Each image that had been so fully formed and clear began to crack and break and crumble away.

It was over. They were gone. It was all over.

"I'm not sure what protocol is here."

"The girl is of age. We don't need to contact her parents. Just treat her as you would…."

"Minerva."

"Yes, Poppy?"

"This shouldn't be happening. How many times does something like this have to happen before enough is enough?"

"Poppy."

"A seventeen year old girl is lying in my hospital wing suffering from a miscarriage. A _seventeen year old girl_ , Minerva."

"I know," Professor Mcgonagall replied, sounding tired.

"I've been saying it for years. Decades, even!" Madam Pomfrey continued. "But I suppose it's easy to ignore when you're not the one that has to see the seventeen year old girl suffering a miscarriage! And do you remember what happened with the Davidson girl, what was it, seven or eight years ago now? Took a bad batch of termination potion and had nearly bled dry before she even came to me! And let's not forget the Hufflepuff gonorrhea outbreak of 'ninety-five! And those are only the extreme cases, Minerva."

"I know."

"These children don't know how to protect themselves! And if they aren't learning it here and if they aren't going to learn from the parents, where are they going to learn? I used to say it to Albus all the time, just because _he_ wasn't sleeping with anyone-"

"Poppy!"

"-doesn't mean that these kids aren't going to. They have fire in their loins, Minerva! They need to know how to protect themselves from actually feeling like their loins are on fire, though."

"I understand."

Ginny stared up at the dark ceiling from her bed in the hospital wing. The curtains were drawn around her, blocking Madam Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall from view, but she could still hear their hushed conversation. She had been there for a few hours now. Hermione had fallen asleep in the chair beside her, after refusing to leave Ginny's side.

Ginny couldn't fall asleep, though. She felt numb. Her pain had stopped, thanks to a potion that Madam Pomfrey had given her. She didn't feel any pain at all. She didn't feel anything.

"This shouldn't be happening," Madam Pomfrey said. "Things like this can be avoided."

They continued to talk, but Ginny tuned it out.

The trip from her bed to the hospital wing didn't feel real. It felt like a distant memory, a dream, a feeling of detachment coming over her, as if she was watching it happen to somebody else. She didn't want to go, but Hermione insisted. Madam Pomfrey had asked her questions - how far along she had been, things like that, but she couldn't think, couldn't answer, and Hermione took over, knowing everything enough to tell Madam Pomfrey what she needed to know.

"You'll stay here the rest of the night," Madam Pomfrey had told her.

"Why did it happen?" Ginny asked, desperate to know. Madam Pomfrey looked at her, and she could see the pity in her eyes, and in her small, sad smile.

"Sometimes these things just happen. There isn't always a reason."

"Did I do something wrong? Was it my fault?"

"Oh, dear, no. It just… sometimes things just go wrong. It happens sometimes and we don't know why."

She felt betrayed by her own body. Again. It was the second time her body had betrayed her. The first time, she had been eleven years old and her own body had been out of her control. And now, it had been out of her control again, and it betrayed her again.

She felt nothing. Numb. Empty.

Her body, which had so recently held another life, was empty. Her body had betrayed her and she was empty.

She fell asleep. It was the only thing left for her to do. She couldn't think, she couldn't feel, so she fell asleep. She didn't dream. She didn't wake up once. And when she did, there was a split second before she remembered where she was and why she was there. And for a split second, everything was okay. But then the split second passed, and it all came back to here. And it was bright, the sun of late morning streaming through the windows. She wanted to go back to sleep. But she had woken up for a reason. Another split second went by, and she knew why she was awake.

"Hermione, _what_ is going on?!"

"I asked you to stop!"

"Why are you not telling us anything?!"

"Because I can't! I told you that! I told you that I can't! You weren't supposed to come here!"

"Hermione."

It was Harry's voice.

Hogsmeade. They were meant to meet in Hogsmeade. She had completely forgotten.

Ginny hadn't opened her eyes. She continued to feign sleep.

"Please tell us what's happening. You show up without her, refuse to tell us anything, finally tell us that she's in the hospital wing, but you won't tell us why…. Hermione, what's happened? Why is she here? What's wrong?"

"I can't."

Ginny could tell that Hermione was near tears, or was perhaps already crying. Ginny opened her eyes, looking towards them. Hermione, Ron, and Harry stood nearby, but they didn't notice yet that she was awake. She wanted Madam Pomfrey to shoo them away, but they spoke quietly, she likely didn't even know that they were there.

Hermione had tears streaking down her cheeks, leaving two shiny trails along her dark skin. She looked at Ginny, immediately meeting her eyes, and in a single glance, Ginny could see that Hermione was helpless. It only took a moment before Harry and Ron followed Hermione's eyes, and then they were all looking at Ginny. She scanned their faces quickly. They were confused. Worried. Hermione hadn't told them anything.

"I'm so sorry," Hermione whispered to her. "It was too late to tell them not to come. I had to meet them. I didn't know what to say. They came here… I tried to stop them. I'm so sorry."

"Ginny."

She couldn't look at him. Harry was looking at her, his utterance of her name full of unasked questions, but she couldn't look at him.

"Tell them," she said, her own voice, raspy and tired, sounding foreign to her ears.

"What?"

"Tell them," she repeated, looking straight at Hermione, and she watched as her wide eyes filled with fresh tears and she shook her head, bringing her hands to her mouth.

"I can't," she muttered. "Not the both of them. Not at the same time."

"What? Tell us _what_?!" Ron demanded.

Hermione's eyes were pleading with her, but Ginny remained expressionless, resigned to the fact that now that Ron and Harry were there, they had to know. They would both know, and what was the use of drawing it out any longer? She almost wished that she was feeling the same fear that Hermione was feeling. But she still felt nothing at all. She looked away, staring up at the ceiling.

"Ron, you mustn't get angry," Hermione began weakly.

"Why would I get angry? What the hell is going on?"

"Please, Ron."

"Hermione, just tell us," Harry said, his voice calm, but Ginny could hear the tiniest hint of fear.

"Ginny's had a miscarriage."

The air seemed to disappear from the room completely. It was so silent that the ringing in Ginny's ears was deafening. She longed to look at them, to look at Harry, to see his face, to try to know what he was feeling, but she couldn't. She squeezed her eyes closed. It all felt like a terrible dream and she would wake up any second now, and maybe she would still be pregnant, or maybe she would be back at The Burrow and she wouldn't have ever been pregnant at all, and none of this would have ever happened.

But when she opened her eyes, she was still in the hospital wing, and everything was real.

"I… Sorry, I'm…," Ron stammered, finally breaking the long, deafening silence. "I'm confused. I don't think I quite understand."

"Yes, you do," Ginny said, voice dull and flat, still not looking at any of them. "I've had a miscarriage. I was pregnant. And now I'm not."

There was another near-silence, the only noise being the sound of Hermione sniffling, and then, the squeak of a shoe and several footsteps, and finally, Ginny turned to look at them again. Only, Ron was missing. Hermione was looking towards the door, and Harry's face was blank, rooted to one spot, staring at the floor.

Ginny turned away once more.

"Harry," Hermione whispered. But only silence followed.

"Why, Mister Potter. Just when I think I've seen the last of you in my hospital wing, you're back. Although, for once, you don't seem to be sporting any new injuries, so I suppose that's an improvement."

"Madam Pomfrey," Harry replied, his voice sounding strained and odd. "I was just…."

He trailed off. But Madam Pomfrey barely seemed to notice as she turned her attention to Ginny.

"If you two don't mind, I'd like to check on my patient," she said, but nobody moved or made any sort of indication that they had even heard her at all. Ginny watched as Madam Pomfrey looked at the two visitors, and she was sure that she was connecting the dots, figuring out why Harry was there and how he was involved. A moment passed. Silence. Nobody moved. Finally, Madam Pomfrey spoke again.

"Miss Granger? Perhaps you could bring Miss Weasley some fresh robes so she doesn't have to go about in her pajamas. I expect she'll be free to go shortly."

Surely, there was an easier way for Ginny to have clothes other than her pajamas that didn't involve Hermione going all the way to the dormitories and back, but Ginny understood it as Madam Pomfrey simply giving Hermione something to _do_ , her look of helplessness still etched across her face.

"Okay," Hermione answered.

Madam Pomfrey drew the curtains around her bed. Ginny sat up, going through the motions of whatever Madam Pomfrey told her to do. She examined her midsection with her wand, nodding to herself and then telling Ginny, "Everything is looking okay."

Ginny wasn't sure what that meant in the circumstances of a miscarriage, but she nodded anyways.

"You're alright to leave," she said. "It seems that you body is taking care of everything on its own… You might continue to have a bit of discomfort… but everything is fine."

"Okay," Ginny said softly.

"I understand that this is probably a difficult time-"

"It's fine," Ginny interrupted her, not wanting to hear about the 'difficult time' that she was going through. "I'm fine."

"Okay," Madam Pomfrey nodded. "You're free to go when you are ready."

"Thank you," Ginny told her. And then Madam Pomfrey left, reopening the curtains around her bed, and then Ginny sat alone in the hospital wing. She was still in her pajamas from the night before, although the blood from her pants had been magically cleaned away. Even though the blood was gone with no trace that it had ever been there, she was convinced that she could still see it. She wanted nothing more than to throw those particular pajama pants away forever. She sat, waiting for Hermione to bring her fresh clothing to change into.

"Ron."

It was faint, but she heard the voice clearly, just outside of the hospital wing, unmistakably Harry's.

"Don't," Ron replied. "Don't even try to talk to me right now."

"Okay," Harry said, followed by several seconds of silence, until

"How could you?" Ron asked.

"What?"

"You _got my sister pregnant._ How could you?!"

"I didn't know."

"I don't care that you didn't know. You… you…. You did this to her!"

"Yes, I did, but I didn't do it on purpose! You can't be angry at me!"

"Oh, I can't? Bloody hell, Harry, you're shagging my sister and I can't be angry at you?!"

"Is that the reason why? She's my girlfriend! You know that! It's not like I've hid that from you."

"I don't care! It doesn't matter!" Ron argued. "You can't- that's not-"

"You're being ridiculous, Ron."

"No, I'm not. You have no business doing that with my _sister_."

"Again, she's my _girlfriend_. Like you're not sleeping with Hermione."

"That's _different."_

"How? How is that different?!"

"It… it just is! For one thing, she's… she's…," Ron stammered, clearly struggling.

"She's nobody's sister?" Harry suggested.

"She would never let something like _this_ happen," he said. "You _got her pregnant_! You're lucky _this_ happened-"

" _Lucky?_ " Harry repeated incredulously. Their voices had grown steadily louder, and Ginny didn't even have to try to hear them anymore. She heard every word clearly. "You call this lucky? Did you even see her in there? _That's_ lucky to you?"

"You know what I mean."

"No, actually, I don't know what you mean."

"What would you have done?! If she hadn't… if she'd… if she had a baby?"

"What do you think I would have done, Ron?"

"Would you have married her?"

"Yes," Harry answered without hesitation. "But I didn't even know! Not until now."

"It doesn't matter that you didn't know. It still happened. You still let it happen."

"I don't know what you want me to say."

"There's nothing you can say. The damage is done, isn't it?"

"What's going on?" Hermione's voice suddenly asked, and Ginny was sure that regardless of how much of their conversation she had heard, Hermione had learned over the years to detect tension between Ron and Harry.

"Nothing," Ron and Harry said in unison, but the way they both said it, it clearly wasn't 'nothing'.

"You two are not fighting right now, are you?" Hermione asked, softly so that Ginny had to strain to hear her.

"He's being-"

"Oh, _I'm_ being-"

"-ridiculous-"

"-fucking arse-"

"-saying that-"

"-but I'm not-"

"-when she's-"

They kept talking over each other, Ginny only able to pick up a few words at a time, growing louder and louder with each passing second.

"Stop it! Stop it, stop it, stop it! Both of you! What in the hell is wrong with you?!" Hermione shouted at them.

"He knocked up my sister!" Ron exclaimed.

"Ron, please! It wasn't done on purpose, and either way-"

"You're on his side?"

"Side?" Hermione said. " _Side?_ Ron, I'm on nobody's side. If anything, I'm on Ginny's side!"

"Wait," Ron said suddenly, and was silent for a moment. "You knew."

The words were laced with vicious accusation, and a long silence followed.

"You knew, didn't you?"

"Ron."

"You knew. You knew and you didn't tell me."

"It was never mine to tell!"

"I'm your boyfriend, aren't I?"

"That doesn't mean that I'm supposed to tell you your sister's secrets! She's my friend and I would not betray her just because-"

"Well, you've betrayed me!"

"Oh, please, no I have not, you are being fucking absurd, Ronald!"

"I don't keep things from you!"

"You are being so childish right now. This isn't about you, Ron. Your sister lost her baby and your big concern is what? That she had sex? Because she is an adult, she can do that. Or what it because it was with your friend? Or that I knew and didn't tell you? Because none of those things matter. None of it _fucking matters,_ Ron. You're making this about yourself. It's not about you."

"Yeah. You're right. None of this fucking matters."

"Ron!"

Ginny listened as the heavy footsteps thudded further away.

"Yeah, okay!" Hermione yelled out, her voice shrill. "Just walk away. Because that's what you do, isn't it?! That's what you do!"

"Hermione."

"Dammit!" she cried.

"I'll take this," Harry said quietly. "Go."

"Harry."

" _Go."_

More footsteps, quicker, Hermione chasing after Ron. And then silence. And then Harry.

She met his eyes the minute he stepped into the room. He stood there, staring back at her, and there were so many things that she wanted to say, and yet she couldn't think of a single word.

"Did you hear…?"

"Everything," she nodded. "Do you think they'll be okay?"

"Ron and Hermione?" he asked, and she nodded. "Yeah. They'll be fine. They've gotten through worse."

"And you and Ron?"

"Oh...I dunno," he shrugged. "I think these are for you."

He stepped near to her, holding out a pile of neatly-folding clothes that Hermione must have given to him before running after Ron. Ginny reached out, taking it from him.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"For what?"

"For not telling you. I should have told you. I was going to. Today, actually. I'm sorry that this was how you had to find out."

"Don't apologize for that," he said. "I… I don't even know how hard this must have been for you… everything… I'm sorry, Ginny. I… I'm sorry."

"Harry."

"This is my fault."

"No it isn't," she told him. "Harry, everything we did was completely consensual. It's no more your fault than it is mine."

"But…," Harry began, but Ginny simply shook her head and he trailed off. She longed to touch him, for him to hold her, to be wrapped in his arms, to be close to him. But they were quite a distance apart and it all felt too delicate yet. She knew that touching him would break something within her. She wasn't ready to break.

She changed her clothes. They left the hospital wing together.

"Walk?" Harry suggested, and Ginny nodded. They walked outside, the December wind cold against Ginny's skin, but she didn't mind. They didn't say much. They didn't need to. Walking along the Hogwarts grounds with Harry reminded Ginny of the spring that they were together, before everything had changed forever. She wondered if Harry was thinking the same thing.

Once they both noticed the trickle of students returning from Hogsmeade grow more and more steady, he turned to her.

"I should probably go."

"Okay," she said with a nod.

"I'm…. Are…. I mean….," he struggled with his words, and then he paused, swallowing hard. "I'll see you soon."

"Yeah," she nodded again.

"Okay," he said. "Bye."

"Bye," she replied.

They didn't touch. They looked at each other, the weight of everything left unsaid heavy on both of them, but they said nothing more. They looked away and that was it.

She turned back to the castle. She felt a dull aching inside of her, throughout her entire body from her limbs to her chest to her head. It was all she felt. It wasn't enough, but at the same time, it was far too much.

She found Hermione in the girls' dorms. She sat on the edge of her bed, curled over, hugging her knees and softly crying. Ginny sat beside her, wordlessly easing one of Hermione's hands towards her, grasping onto it. Hermione uncurled, revealing puffy, bloodshot eyes and a tear-streaked face. Ginny held her hand, leaning into her, resting her head on her shoulder.

"You wanna talk about it?" she asked her in a whisper. Hermione shook her head.

"No. Do you?"

Ginny shook her head as well. Hermione let out a soft sigh, tilting her head to rest atop Ginny's. Ginny wanted to tell her that everything would be okay, but the words were stuck in her throat, unable to come out. So instead of saying anything, she held her hand a little bit tighter.

…

It was strange, the way everything kept on moving after something terrible had happened. It had happened after the war, after the final battle. But it was different. The war had happened to everybody, and when it was over, the shock and grief had made a home in them all. Everything kept moving when it was over, but there was a sense of community, and with it came time. Time to process, time to understand before having to pick up and keep moving. There was understanding and support coming from every angle, every single step of the way.

But this was nothing like that. Everything continued to move and everybody continued to move with it. As Ginny walked through the corridors, heading to class, everybody else was exactly the same as they were just a few days ago. Nothing had changed.

She was alone in this. Something had happened to her and she wanted everything to stop until she was ready to keep moving, but it couldn't. The rest of the world was oblivious to her and it all kept going. It all kept moving and she had to move with it. She had to, or she would drown.

She took a breath and she kept moving.

…

Ginny sat down in the chair across from Simone, dropping her bag on the floor and looking at the wall behind Simone rather than straight at her.

"I guess I should tell you that I had a miscarriage," Ginny spit out before she was able to stop herself. She was going to have to tell her eventually. She needed to do it quickly. She hadn't spoken about it since it had happened. Hermione had respected her obvious wish to not talk about it, so they didn't discuss it. Ginny had asked Hermione to tell Luna, so she did. Simone was the only other person that knew that the baby had ever even existed in the first place. Ginny knew that she had to tell her. So, she did before she could convince herself not to.

"Ginny-"

"But I don't want to talk about it," she added hastily, and then continued before Simone could speak. "I know what I'm doing. I understand it now. I'm pushing my feelings away. I'm avoiding them because I'm scared of how badly it's going to hurt. And I know that the longer I wait to feel them, the more they're going to hurt when I finally do. But it's only been a few days, and I'm just… not ready. Not yet. Okay?"

"Okay," Simone agreed. "You don't have to talk about it today. We can get there when you're ready. I really am very sorry that you have to go through this, Ginny."

"I'm fine," Ginny mumbled, a reflex, a lie.

"You're not," Simone said, seeing right through her.

"I'm not."

"And that's okay."

Ginny let out a soft sigh, closing her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, they immediately landed on the photograph atop Simone's desk, and she looked once again at Simone's family.

"Will you tell me more about your son?" she asked.

"My son?" Simone repeated, sounding unsure and confused.

Ginny nodded.

"Are you sure that's what you want?"

"Yes. I just… please?"

"I…. Okay," Simone said. "Well… he's four now. He loves Spider-Man, which is, uh, it's a muggle thing, he's a superhero, a character with powers, he can shoot webs and climb up walls like a spider, fights bad guys… his dad is also muggle-born, so there's a lot of muggle things… but he's really into Spider-Man right now. He has this Spider-Man toy that he won't go anywhere without… He's got an imagination, too..."

Ginny smiled, listening to Simone speak with such obvious love for her child. There was something else, deep within her, a part of her that ached, somewhere in the pit of her stomach. She felt it and she didn't ignore it or push it away. She felt it, and it was the first real thing that she had felt since it all happened. She felt it, and it hurt, and she was glad that it was there.

The room was full of reminders of what she had lost. Simone, the only person she had actually told about the pregnancy, proof that it had happened, that it was real. The poster on the wall with the black and white and red, the Macbeths and the child that they had lost. The photograph of Simone's son, with his cherubic, rosy cheeks and that blonde hair, so unlike the child that Ginny had pictured for herself, but still an image of everything that had been taken from her by the betrayal of her own body.

She ached. She ached, and she felt it, and it was the first real thing that she had felt since it all happened.

She felt it. And it hurt. And she was glad that it was there.

* * *

 **A/N:** An author's note at the end of the chapter? I know, weird, right? I just kind of felt like the last chapter needed to flow right into this one, so... yeah. I wanted to get this up sooner, but, you know... life, and stuff. Apologies for the wait!

I really wanted to say, though, that there has been quite a few... mixed feelings about what has been happening in this story, and I totally get that. I understand it and expected it, and that's great! To make anyone have feelings at all (good or bad!) is great! But I wanted to say that from the very beginning of _planning_ this story, this was always going to happen. This was never really a story about pregnancy. The miscarriage was always going to happen, but I needed the pregnancy to happen first because, well... yeah. I like to think of this as a story about how people deal with loss in different ways. Also, the topic of miscarriage is still kind of taboo, even though it happens to so many women, and the idea of losing an unplanned pregnancy was something that struck me as an especially emotionally difficult situation. I don't know if what I want to get across in the story is/will actually come across the way that I want it to, but hopefully you guys can sort of understand where I'm coming from.

Anyways, I know that I might lose readers, and I will be very sad to see them go, but if you hang in there with me, I will be so very grateful!

Hey, have I ever mentioned that in my brain, Simone is "played by" and also totally shaped after Marion Cotillard? Just a little fun fact for ya. There are tons of tiny references to Marion that just show how much of a creepy fangirl I am. I can't help it. She's my wife.

As always, feedback is so very appreciated!


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